Mountain Action

Concerned citizens have blocked the shipment of a massive generator to Cliffside Coal Plant.

Pictures  on their way.  Keep track at http://twitter.com/RisingTideNA

Greenville, SC Two protestors have locked themselves to the 1.5 million pound generator destined for Duke Energy’s Cliffside coal plant in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Protestors are vowing to prevent the generator, which has been traveling across South Carolina on a 300 foot trailer, from reaching the coal plant. “Our nation has no choice, we must stop burning coal. The only choice that we can make is whether we do that in time to still have breathable air, drinkable water, a livable climate, and standing mountains,” said, Catherine Anne. Protestors also draped a large banner from the top of the generator reading, “Stop Cliffside.”

The controversial Cliffside coal plant would emit over 6 million tons of carbon dioxide ever year in addition to toxic levels of heavy metals such as mercury, greatly exacerbating global warming and our abysmal air quality. Duke Energy is seeking to raise electricity rates in order to pay for the construction of Cliffside at a time when record numbers of families are struggling to put food on the table due to the recession.

This act of civil disobedience comes a week before world leaders meet in Copenhagen to hash out a global climate agreement. “Any agreement made in Copenhagen will be meaningless if the US continues to build coal plants such as Cliffside. It is time to tear down coal plants, not construct new ones,” said Rachel Scarano. There are currently 43 coal plants proposed or under construction in the US, though over 100 others have been canceled due to widespread protests.

Since it was first proposed, there has been massive opposition to Cliffside. In the past year and a half over 60 people have been arrested protesting the plant, and they vow to continue the fight. “Since politicians and corporations refuse to take serious action to stop climate change, citizens must step in to shut down coal plants,” said Attila Nemecz. The protest was organized by Asheville Rising Tide and Croatan Earth First! and is part of a national day of action with dozens of protests around the country including Chicago, New York City, Washington DC, and San Francisco.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 11/21/09
Contact: Zoe Beavers 304-854-7372
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

PETTUS, W. Va. – Early this morning two concerned citizens, Dea Goblirsch and Nick Martin, locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree mountaintop removal site, effectively stopping blasting. Two others, Grace Williams and Laura Von Dolen, joined them in direct support, holding a banner with the message “Save Coal River Mountain”.

These nonviolent protestors have taken this action to bring attention to the extreme danger facing residents of the Coal River Valley from blasting near the Brushy Fork Impoundment. They plan to stay locked down until law enforcement removes them.

Resident of Rock Creek, W Va., Delbert Gunnoe, stated his concerns with the blasting, “You know when they put a blast over there, and it shakes the windows over here, at what, ¾-a-mile distance, imagine what it does over there.” Gunnoe continued, “if [the impoundment] did bust…what would be the destruction? The town of Whitesville would no longer exist.”

The four are fearful of the blasting that Massey Energy began in late October. These blasts are 200 feet from the Brushy Fork Impoundment, permitted to hold nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. The impoundment sits atop miles of hollow, abounded underground mines, further endangering its integrity. By Massey’s own estimates, roughly 998 people will die should the dam break. The emergency evacuation plan states that a 40-foot wall of sludge, cresting at 72 feet, will flow through the valley, reaching 20-feet-high about 15 miles down the road. Apart from the initial flood, the impact of this potential spill would be felt along the Coal River’s 88 miles.

“The Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment keeps residents of the Coal River Valley up at night, waiting for eight billion gallons of toxic coal slurry to come rushing towards them,” said Dea Goblirsch, one of the two locked down. “I don’t know how Massey executives sleep soundly at night.”

Hydrologist, Dr. Rick Eades spoke of concerns about the stability of the dam as blasting occurs. He questioned “blasting where underground mines existed in the Eagle coal seam, the possibilities for adversely affecting near-surface bedrock in a way that could possibly enhance pathways for slurry to be released via the subsurface and bypass the dam.”

The concern is that slurry will break into underground mine shafts and blow out through old mine openings on the side of the mountain. This potentiality for Coal River Mountain mirrors the cause of the world’s largest slurry spill which occurred in Martin County, Ky. In 2000, 250 million gallons of slurry broke forth from a 2.2-billion-gallon impoundment, killing nearly all life in the Big Sandy River. Its impact reached all the way to the Ohio River, about 100 miles away.

Earlier this week, EPA sent out a letter to Marfork Coal Co., a subsidiary of Massey Energy Co., airing concerns about the absence of a valley fill permit, and requesting an extensive amount of information concerning the mountaintop removal operation on the Bee Tree site.

In note of the this, Nick Martin, currently locked down, said, “The EPA’s recent action proves that the communities’ concerns about this site are shared at the highest levels of government.”

Matt Louis-Rosenberg, a Climate Ground Zero activist, adds, “Coal River Wind attempted to get a meeting with the governor for a year and it took people sitting in his office to get him to sit down and meet with concerned community members, just like it takes our actions up on Coal River Mountain to get the federal government to step in.”

The concern showed by the EPA reflects what the residents of the Coal River Valley have known for a long time; the Brushy Fork Impoundment is putting lives in danger, and the blasting on Coal River Mountain only increases that danger. The protestors on the Bee Tree site are putting out a call to action to save Coal River Mountain and protect all those who would be impacted by a catastrophe there. This action fits into a larger fight against mountaintop removal in Appalachia.

On the whole, Gunnoe’s sentiment was, “Don’t like much about Obama, but he’ll have one heck of a supporter if he stops mountaintop mining.”

Note: More information available at http://climategroundzero.org.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Dea Goblirsch 304 854 7372
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

MADISON, W.Va.—Joseph Hamsher, 22, was sentenced to twenty days in South West Regional Jail for his participation in a Sept. 9 road blockade at Boone County’s Massey Energy Regional Headquarters. He went before Magistrate Charles M. Byrneside at 10:15 a.m. on Oct. 27 for a pre-trial hearing and plead guilty to conspiracy and trespassing asked to leave. Three other charges, also misdemeanors, were dropped as part of the plea agreement: destruction of property, failure to obey a lawful command and resisting arrest. Hamsher was the first of four protesters and one independent journalist arrested during the action to receive a pre-trial.

“The disgusting practice of mountaintop removal has to be brought to an end completely, not just more strictly regulated. I took action so that future generations of West Virginians can hunt, fish and have a good time in the mountains,” Hamsher, a native West Virginian and current resident of Rock Creek, Raleigh County, said.

The sentence was issued with credit for time served, which includes time spent in jail between Hamsher’s arrest on Sept. 9 and his release on bail on Sept. 11. Bail was set at $5,000 cash only for the four protesters and at $3,000 cash only for the journalist, with no ten percent bond option.

Hamsher is the 23rd protester in the Climate Ground Zero campaign to go in front of Magistrate Byrneside and the first to receive a jail sentence.

“I was told that I received this sentence because a previous defendant, Mathew Louis-Rosenberg, laughed in the Magistrate’s face when he was given a fine and because none of those previously fined have paid,” said Hamsher. None of the fines from the other cases are yet due.

“This is a clear attempt to intimidate activists and discourage future actions, as well as obviously prejudicial sentencing.  When a strip miner threatened to kill one of our activists and his small child, the miner was not arrested for over a month and released on a $1000 personal recognizance bond,” said Louis-Rosenberg, referencing the arrest of Adam Pauley for disorderly conduct, public intoxication and verbal assault during Mountain Keepers Festival on Kayford this past July 4, “Joe was set a $5,000 cash-only bail and now faces jail time.”

“I remained calm and respectful throughout my trial, and the fact that he is using my expression of joy at not finding myself in jail as an excuse to jail one of my friends is frankly sickening,” Louis-Rosenberg, 26, continued.

Dear friends-

This morning, just before dawn, four individuals chained themselves across a haul road on a strip mining site in Kanawha County, West Virginia to protest mountaintop removal mining. Four more joined them on site in support roles, unfurling two banners, one reading simply “Stop” and the other reading “Stop Mountaintop Removal.” This action was part of the ongoing Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience.

All eight have been arrested and charged with trespassing asked to leave, conspiracy and obstruction. Bail is set at $2000 each, cash only, with no ten percent bond option. The arrestees include Ryan Olander, Maureen Farrell, Jonathan Irwin, Erika Zarowin, Andrea Lai, Alexander Lotorto, William Wickham and Jacqueline Quimby.

In order to meet bail, totalling $16,000, for these individuals who took a stand against an incredibly destructive form of coal mining and the human and environmental devastation of Appalachia, we need your help. To donate, please visit the Climate Ground Zero legal fund paypal.

This is the 16th in a series of civil disobedience actions taken this year by Climate Ground Zero, Mountain Justice, Coal River Valley residents, NASA climate scientist James Hansen, students, underground miners, military veterans, concerned citizens and environmentalists from across the nation with the goal of ending mountaintop removal.

To read the full text of the press release, please visit Climate Ground Zero.
Contact Dea Goblirsch or Charles Suggs at 304 854 7372 for questions.

Thanks and best,

Climate Ground Zero

For Immediate Release
Contact: Dea Goblirsch and Charles Suggs 304 854 7372
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

QUARRIER, W.Va.- Four protestors locked down to a coal truck entering a mine site in the vicinity of Quarrier and Decota at 7 a.m. this morning. Four other protestors joined them on the Kanawha County site, hanging two banners; one across the haul road and another on the back of the truck. The first banner read “Stop,” the second “Stop Mountaintop Removal.”

The nonviolent protestors intend to remain locked to the coal truck until law enforcement removes them. They have taken this action to highlight the detrimental effects of mountaintop removal mining, including its lack of economic sustainability.

“By blocking this road, we aim to bring attention not only to Appalachia’s disappearing mountains, but also to its disappearing job market,” said Jonathon Irwin, 23.

The highly active site is near Cabin Creek and Paint Creek, an area rich in union history. The two creeks were the locations of the first West Virginia mine war, fought from 1912 to 1913. Striking miners from 86 underground mines fought for higher wages, unionization and more autonomy from the company-town model.

Mechanization, which allows for strip and mountaintop removal mining, has drastically decreased mine jobs in West Virginia. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the early 1950s there were between 125,000 and 145,000 miners employed in the state; in 2004 there were just over 16,000. Draglines and other advances in technology resulted in a 37 percent decline in mining jobs between 1987 and 1997, while coal production rose 32 percent during the same period.  As of 2007, the difference in coal production was roughly cut in half and jobs increased by 1,048.

Coal jobs are also threatened by the limited amount of remaining mineable coal. Nick Rahall, a Congressional representative from Raleigh County, claimed in a State Journal article that we only have twenty years left in West Virginia’s most productive coal seams and that the state should begin looking at alternative energy options.

Some communities have taken initiatives themselves; the Coal River Wind Project proposes turning Coal River Mountain in to an industrial wind farm. This would create 200 jobs for a two-year construction period and 40 to 50 permanent jobs. A mine on Coal River Mountain would create 57 jobs per million tons mined, according to a 2007 Mine Safety and Health Administration report. This is substantially below the U.S. Department of Energy estimates of 95 employees per million tons mined for southern West Virginia sites. The three mine sites proposed for the mountain have been estimated to be active through 2025, whereas the wind farm could last as long as the wind blows.

The protestors are also bringing attention to mountaintop removal as a national issue.

“There is a coal plant a block from where I live [in Oberlin, Ohio],” said Erika Zarowin, who locked down to the truck, “I get my heat and electricity from coal.” Some of the coal burned in Oberlin, like the coal bought by most American power utilities, comes from mountaintop removal.

Editor’s Note: Later information confirmed that the protestors were not in fact locked to a coal truck, but four were chained across a haul road, while four unrolled banners.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Dea Goblirsch or Garrett Robinson (304-513-4710)
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

CHARLESTON, W.Va.- Coal River Valley residents and supporters associated with Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero delivered a letter to Governor’s Manchin’s office in the State Capitol building at 12:15 p.m. today. The statement from Coal River Valley residents calls on Manchin to use his executive powers to halt mountaintop removal mining operations on Coal River Mountain, one of the last intact mountains remaining in the Coal River Valley area.

Governor Manchin met the letter deliverers in the antechamber of his office and spoke with Lorelei Scarbro of Rock Creek and Chuck Nelson of Glen Daniel. As of 2:30 p.m. seven young people are sitting in the antechamber, refusing to leave until Manchin moves to halt MTR on Coal River Mountain or they are forcibly removed. Security guards conveyed to them that they have permission to remain until the close of normal business hours at 5 p.m..

“We are delivering this letter to our governor with residents of the Coal River Valley,” said Miranda Miller and Angela Wiley of Morgantown, W.Va., two of the seven sitters, “We are West Virginia citizens standing in solidarity with the people who submitted comments for this letter, voicing their concerns on the dangers of blasting on Coal River Mountain.”

For years, local residents have expressed their concerns over the long-term health effects of their proximity to coal mining and processing operations, while scientists have stated that it devastates local ecosystems and contaminates groundwater with carcinogens and heavy metals. One of the most imminent dangers associated with the proposed Coal River Mountain operation is its proximity to the Brushy Fork sludge impoundment dam, which holds seven to nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry.

Many Coal River Valley residents have put forth the idea of constructing of an industrial-scale wind farm on the mountain instead of MTR. The ridges on Coal River Mountain are rated as Class 7 wind sources, the highest and most productive rating. Research by the Coal River Community Wind Project has shown that a wind farm on top of the mountain could generate approximately 1.2% of West Virginia’s total energy needs and would create at least 300 jobs in the area. A wind farm will produce energy for as long as the wind blows, unlike coal – reserves of which, according to the U.S. Geologic Survey, will last only another 14 years.

“By blasting away our wind potential, we risk losing the opportunity to have jobs that would last forever,” Chuck Nelson, a retired coal miner, said, “As we face the climate crisis, we need to set an example in creating renewable energy.”

Herk McGraw drove from the outskirts of Charleston, West Virginia to participate in this week’s Senior Citizens March to End Mountaintop Removal. Sue Rosenberg made the trek from Saugerties, New York. They were not solely motivated by the call for elders to join the struggle against environmental devastation in Appalachia; McGraw and Rosenberg are joining the 25 mile march from the State Capitol to the gates of Mammoth Coal Company in part because of young people in their lives. McGraw’s granddaughter, Zoe Beavers, and Rosenberg’s son, Mathew Louis-Rosenberg, are both active in Climate Ground Zero, a civil disobedience campaign based in the coalfields of southern West Virginia.

“I’m opposed to mountaintop removal, of course,” said McGraw, a Methodist minister and coal miner’s son, “But particularly after they arrested Zoe [in August's tree sit at Pettry Bottom, W.Va.], that gave me a little more enthusiasm about coming out and supporting her.” Beavers, 28, served as ground support for the two tree sitters. She was arrested twice over the course of the five day protest; once two days after returning as a liason for the sitters at the request of state police.

Beavers enlisted in the U.S. Army after her high school graduation in 2000 and did not move back to her home state until May of 2009. She credits her return to West Virginia, where she lives with family in St. Albans, to the burgeoning movement for environmental justice in the coalfields.

“My whole life I was taught that nothing can change in West Virginia, we shouldn’t fight for it because it’s a lost cause,” the Iraq War veteran, who now works with the Student Environmental Action Coalition out of Charleston, said, “We are not powerless.”

Her grandfather’s main concern with mountaintop removal mining is the industry’s dishonesty.

“What they’re talking about mountaintop removal and what actually happens with mountaintop removal are two different things,” he said, “They say that they are putting it back like it was . . . but what’s been done with it mostly is the golf course and the prison.”

—

Mat Louis-Rosenberg grew up in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Born in to a family with deep activist roots, his first memory is of participating in a march in his hometown at three years of age. Louis-Rosenberg was raised with a strong appreciation for United States radical history- he learned about West Virginia through family friends’ stories of the labor movement.

Louis-Rosenberg moved to the Coal River Valley last year to work as a Sludge Safety Project organizer with Coal River Mountain Watch. His work with Climate Ground Zero includes a May 2009 arrest for playing a support role in a lock down to machinery on Kayford Mountain. In a pre-trial hearing, he was among two of the eight activists involved in the lock down who refused to plead no contest and accept a fine of nearly $2,000. He will be tried by jury on October 15 at the Madison Courthouse in Boone County.

“Mat used to say that he walked in the footsteps and on the shoulders of his grandparents and he was very proud of that,” said Sue Rosenberg, 62, who is in West Virginia for both the March and the trial, “I’m proud to now be walking in the footsteps of my son.” Rosenberg was a Civil Rights activist during her high school years in New York City, and later went on to work against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons; as well as in solidarity with the people’s movements of Central America.

Sue Rosenberg was recently arrested at a June 23rd Marsh Fork Elementary School rally. The school, in Sundial, W.Va., sits just below a 2.9 billion gallon coal waste sludge impoundment and next to a coal silo and processing plant. Community organizers, West Virginia Senators Byrd and Rockefeller, and Congressman Rahall are pressuring Massey Energy, who owns the plant, impoundment and silo, to pay for the relocation of Marsh Fork Elementary. Rosenberg has been active in her recruitment of others to the cause, including World War II veteran and anti-war activist Joan Keefe. Keefe, at 88, is the oldest participant in the march.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andrew Munn or Dea Goblirsch 304-513-4710
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

BELLE, W.Va. -  Two young people unfurled a banner which read, “Yes, Coal is Killing West Virginia’s Communities”  off of the Walker CAT building in Belle, W.Va. at 12:55 p.m. this afternoon. The youth, who say they were acting in solidarity with the Senior Citizens March to End Mountaintop Removal, are affiliated with Climate Ground Zero. The March passed the Walker CAT building on today’s route.

Gabe Schwartzman, 19, and David German, 18, were arrested by City of Belle Police and cited for trespassing on a structure or conveyance. They were taken to the Magistrate’s Court in Charleston, where they were released at 3:00 p.m on $100 personal recognizance. Steve Walker, CEO of Walker Machinery Company, accompanied the arresting officers to the court.

At 3:20 p.m., the Senior Citizens March to End Mountaintop Removal was halted by the City of Belle Police Department. Officers took the IDs of three marchers who Walker CAT security claim walked onto the business’ property.

Walker CAT’s Earthmoving Division is one of the main suppliers of equipment to mountaintop removal sites in West Virginia. They are also at the forefront of pro-coal advertising campaigns. In addition to television, print, and billboard adds, Walker CAT produced “Mountaintop Mining Viewpoint,” a brochure aimed at influencing public opinion in support of the practice. The twenty-eight page document makes claims that mountaintop removal coal mining is necessary, cheap and environmentally responsible.

While speaking to marchers and supporters at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charleston last night, Larry Gibson of Kayford Mountain stated, “They keep saying coal is cheap. Ask someone who lost someone in the mining industry how cheap it is. We know better than that in the coal fields.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Andrew Munn or Dea Goblirsch 304-513-4710
Email: news@climategroundzero.org

CHARLESTON, W.Va.- Fifteen participants between the ages of 50 and 83 set off on a Senior Citizen’s March to End Mountaintop Removal at 10 a.m. this morning.  The march was preceded by a rally and press conference in front of the State Capitol building, and is sponsored by a coalition that includes Climate Ground Zero, Mountain Justice, Intergenerational Justice and Christians for the Mountains. It is part of an ongoing civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop removal in West Virginia.

The seniors are walking five miles each day for five days, ending at Massey subsidiary Mammoth Coal on Monday, Oct. 12. In a statement issued by the US Mine Safety & Health Administration yesterday, Mammoth Coal was named as one of ten mining operators that need to improve performance or face tougher enforcement.

The mountaintop removal mine and processing plant, formerly operated by Cannelton Coal, was bought out by Massey in 2004. Massey cut the United Mine Workers of America contract and reopened the site, located east of Charleston on Route 60, as the non-union Mammoth Coal Company. The decision was met with a UMWA-organized picket and lawsuits.

“Mountaintop removal is closing in on our home place in Coal River, destroying the ridge up and down the river,” said Julian Martin, 73, a coal miner’s son and Vice President of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, “I see mountaintop removal as probably the world’s worst environmental disaster.” Martin’s grandfather fought in the largest organized labor uprising in United States history, the Battle of Blair Mountain.

March organizers Roland Micklem, 81, and Andrew Munn, 23, are planning activities and speaking events each evening, including talks by Larry Gibson of the Keepers of the Mountain Foundation and Jesse Johnson, 2004 and 2008 Green Party gubernatorial candidate at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charleston on Friday and Saturday night.

“We seniors need to make a statement with our own actions and share the risks that are part of this ongoing effort to stop the obliteration of West Virginia’s mountains,” said Micklem, a Korean War veteran and former environmental journalist. His organizing philosophy is rooted in Ghandian principles of nonviolent civil disobedience and dialogue with opposition; the energetic senior invited Massey Energy officials to speak with him at the gates of Mammoth Coal Company on Monday. Micklem has not yet received a response.

“As a young person, it is inspiring to see the strength with which senior citizens are stepping forward to meet the task at hand,” said Munn, “Climate justice and the preservation of ecological and cultural heritage are issues for all generations, so I think it is fitting that we see this coalition emerging at the forefront of the movement to stop mountaintop removal.”

Friday’s portion of the March will leave at 10 a.m. from the Poorboy’s Market, located at 4008 Malden Dr. in Charleston.

Updates and multimedia can be found on www.climategroundzero.org

CHARLESTON, W.VA.— At 9:30 a.m., four protesters entered the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) and locked themselves to the office entrance. They are demanding that the agency hand over control of key programs to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) and that WVDEP Secretary Randy Huffman resign. Around them, dozens of demonstrators reiterated those demands. Inside the WVDEP, the four protesters are displaying signs that read “Closed Due to Incompetence” and “Department of Encouraging Pollution.”

Twelve protests in West Virginia since February 2009 have demanded an end to mountaintop removal, and over 90 citizens have been arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience. Read the rest of this entry »

by Jeff Biggers

This might be a first in the country: The failed West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection is emerging as such an embarrassingly pro-coal anti-mountain public relations nightmare for Gov. Joe Manchin that even retired coal miners have taken to the streets against the state’s environmental regulators, calling on the federal EPA and Office of Surface Mining to take over the key duties of the dysfunctional state agency.

The uprising in the Appalachian coalfields against failed state government action on mining policy is growing–today, coalfield residents took their protests directly to ground zero of the state’s regulatory failure.

Following 12 previous protests and civil disobedience actions in the Appalachian coalfields this spring and summer, a contingent of four protesters locked themselves to the WV DEP doorsin Charleston, WV in a nonviolent sit-in. Four protesters were reportedly arrested.

While the WVA Department of Environmental Protection carried out the “Blaster’s Exam” today, as part of its unfettered support for mountaintop removal mining and the daily detonation of 3.5 million pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives in historic mountain communities, scores of fed up coal miners and coalfield residents also rallied at the agency’s office this morning. The protesters presented an embarrassingly long list of the agency’s failure to hold up its mandate to protect and restore the environment, ensure water quality, and enforce strip mining, and demanded the resignation of WV DEP Secretary Randy Huffman.

According to the coalfield residents, the DEP has failed to hold mining operators accountable for violations, refused to thoroughly address the potential dangers of coal slurry injection and to set permit limits for abandoned mine site discharge, and misled residents on regulatory actions.

The protestors posted condemnation signs: “Closed Due to Incompetence” and “Department of Encouraging Pollution.”

“The WVDEP ignores or dismisses citizen complaints and refuses to exercise their duty to shut down operations with repeat violations or to deny permits to operators with outstanding violations,” retired West Virginia coal miner Chuck Nelson declared. “It is imperative that we restore the enforcement of all mining laws, so that citizen’s civil and human rights are upheld, and our families and homes are protected from the impacts of mining, and from the hazards of industrial waste.”

On Monday, August 10, in a rare call for federal intervention in this growing national emergency, coalfield citizen groups including Coal River Mountain Watch, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, along with the Sierra Club and the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, formally petitioned the OSMRE to withdraw approval of the state’s surface mining program and substitute federal enforcement. The petition concludes:

“Given West Virginia’s refusal to enforce the law in the face of coal industry interests, we believe that the only remedy that will protect the State’s essential environmental resources is for OSM to substitute federal enforcement, in whole or in part, of the state’s surface mining program.”

The entire petition can be seen here: http://wvgazette.com/static/coal%20tattoo/bufferzonepetition.pdf

Earlier this month, the EPA actually announced its intention to exert greater scrutiny over the WVDEP process of permit applications received for surface mining operations “with valley fills”.

Testifying last month at the first bipartisan US Senate hearing on mountaintop removal in a generation, DEP Secretary Huffman stunned the crowd by chucking his environmental protection mandate out the window and openly defended the reckless part of West Virginia’s Big Coal economy beholden to devastating mountaintop removal operations. Huffman defiantly lectured the US Senators: “West Virginia and the nation need jobs and coal. Nothing in the debate over mountaintop mining debate is going to change that in the short term.”

As if offended by the ancient mountain range and lush hardwood deciduous forests in our nation’s carbin sink of Appalachia, the mountain state’s top environmental regulator then depicted West Virginia mountains as “steep, hostile terrain.”

Hostile terrain? What happened to “Wild and Wonderful”? Or the state motto, montani semper liberi?

This was not the first time for Huffman to declare his horror of the mountains–in the mountain state.

On April 20, Huffman made an extraordinary admission in an interview with the West Virginia Public Radio, declaring that the mountains impeded the state’s development, and therefore, needed to be destroyed through mountaintop removal.

“Mainly what we’re concerned about as regulators is the ability to develop land after mining,” he said. “You need valley fills if you’re going to have a viable post mining economy. You need flat land. And in order to have flat land you need to have valley fills, and one of our biggest concerns is that EPA is wanting to reduce the size and number of valley fills in Appalachia.”

The radio interview is here:http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=9248

As the state’s top environmental regulator, Huffman apparently failed to read the EPA’s 2002 EIS report that “it is unlikely that any more than 2 to 3% of the future post-mining land uses will develop land uses such as housing, commercial, industrial, or public facility development” after mountaintop removal operations.

In fact, Huffman and the WVDEP have apparently failed to consider a lot of basic environmental and human rights issues in the coalfields, none more critical than the impact of injecting coal slurry in underground mines. In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence of contaminated leakages of toxic coal slurry into watersheds and wells, Huffman brazenly told an AP reporter this spring: “”We studied specifically the possibility the slurry injection had migrated into the water, and there’s not a geologic connection between where it was stored and where their problem is.”

Despite Huffman’s denial, scientific tests on water samples contaminated by coal slurry this spring ” found six metals–antimony, arsenic, lead, barium, cadmium and chromium–in levels that exceeded federal standards for primary drinking water at one or more sites.”

The study is at the Coal Tattoo blog: http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/03/19/citizen-slurry-study-ii/

Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward has filed numerous stories on Huffman’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy on coal slurry injections:
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/05/29/wvdeps-dont-ask-dont-tell-policy-on-coal-slurry/

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/07/15/citizens-say-wvdep-incompetent-on-slurry-injection/

Here’s a chart of coal slurry injection sites:

For more information on coal slurry issues, see: http://www.sludgesafety.org/coal_slurry_inj.html

“The WVDEP simply fails to adequately regulate the coal industry,” said Rock Creek resident Lorelei Scarbro. “When WVDEP Secretary Randy Huffman runs off to lobby the EPA to grant illegal valley fill permits, he’s abdicated his responsibility to the people. Corporate coal influence has become so great inside the WVDEP that he has become a public relations spokesperson for the coal industry instead of an enforcer of mining laws and regulations.”

“We will not sit idly by today while the WVDEP is granting blasting certifications for coal companies to demolish our mountains and ruin our homes and communities,” said Bo Webb of Naoma. “It is time for Huffman to resign or be fired. He’s derelict in his duties and grossly incompetent at best. Quite possibly a case for criminal negligence could be made.”

Sundial, WV – Hundreds of anti-mountaintop removal activists gathered today at the Marsh Fork Elementary in Sundial, WV, deep in the Appalachian mountains. Hundreds of pro-coal counter protesters also turned out, resulting in constant interruption of speakers and musical performers and culminating in charges of battery against local woman Ruth Tucker, who struck Goldman Environmental Prize winner Judy Bonds in the face. Bonds has reported pain akin to whiplash when I spoke with her this evening.
Marsh Fork Protest, June 23, 2009 – Images by antrim caskey

BOSTON, MA – Activists with Rising Tide draped a 25-foot banner reading, “Mountain Top Removal Kills Communities: EPA No New Permits. MountainJustice.org” on 1 North Congress St., at the intersection of New Chardon Street and Congress Street, at the downtown offices of the Environmental Protection Agency this morning. The group is urging the agency to block over 150 pending permits for mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia.1

“Mountaintop removal is destroying our nation’s most diverse forests and historic communities,” said Alex Johnston, a Rising Tide activist. “President Obama and the EPA need to take immediate action to stop the bulldozers from destroying America’s oldest mountains and Appalachians homes.”

This act of peaceful protest comes just days after top NASA climate scientist, James Hansen, actress Darryl Hannah, and 29 others were arrested as they protested mountaintop removal mining in southern West Virginia.2 On June 18, 14 concerned citizens entered onto Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal mine site near Twilight, WV. Four of them scaled a 150-foot dragline and unfurled a 15×150 foot banner that said, “Stop Mountaintop Removal Mining”, while nine others deployed a 20×40 foot banner on the ground at the site which read,”Stop Mountaintop Removal: Clean Energy Now.”

On the campaign trail, Obama spoke out against mountain top removal, saying “We’re tearing up the Appalachian Mountains because of our dependence on fossil fuels,” and “We have to find more environmentally sound ways of mining coal, than simply blowing the tops off mountains.”3 Despite these campaign statements, the Obama administration and the EPA have continued to allow mining corporations to continue dumping mining waste into streams and encroach on stream buffers, while offering only weak promises of protection from the “worst impacts” of mountaintop removal operations.

“It’s way past time for civil disobedience to stop mountaintop removal and move quickly toward clean, renewable energy sources,” said Judy Bonds, Goldman Environmental Prize winner and co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch of West Virginia. “For over a century, Appalachian communities have been crushed, flooded, and poisoned as a result of the country’s dangerous and outdated reliance on coal. How could the country care so little about our American mountains, our culture and our lives?”

Every day, mountaintop removal mines use more explosive power than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Mining companies are clear-cutting thousands of acres of some of the world’s most biologically diverse forests. They’re burying biologically crucial headwaters streams with blasting debris, releasing toxic levels of heavy metals into the remaining streams and groundwater and poisoning essential drinking water. According to the EPA, this destructive practice has damaged or destroyed nearly 2,000 miles of streams and threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of forest by 2020.

1 http://www.mountainjustice.org/events.php?id=154
2 http://wwwmountainaction.org
3 http://washingtonindependent.com/43861/epa-mining-decisions-favor-coal-industry
4 http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/40129

NASA Climatologist Dr. James Hansen is arrested at the gates of Massey's Goals Coal plant. (photo: RAN)

Notables attending a peaceful protest against Big Coal were arrested and two local organizers were attacked by an industry supporter.

UPDATE: 6 pm EST. Goldman Prize Award Winner Attacked. During the rally in front of the Massey Energy coal property today, Coal River Mountain Watch co-director (and 2003 Goldman Prize Award winner) Judy Bonds was reportedly assaulted by a Massey supporter. While Bonds was engaged in a nonviolent protest, the Massey supporter lunged from the line without any provocation and roughly slapped Bonds on the head, ear and jaw. The Massey supporter also attempted an attack on another protestor, Lorelei Scarbro, a coal miner’s widow and local community organizer. The Massey supporter was immedidately apprehended by the police and charged with battery, according to news reports.

The crowd included dozens of Mountain Justice participants who have been active in similar protests since 2005, including getting arrested at the same site. Read the rest of this entry »