This is a huge step in a long and bitter battle fought between the world’s sixth-largest corporation, and a tough and dedicated coalition – including RAN – of environmental, anti-war, and public health groups.

When Chevron submitted permit applications in 2005 to “expand” its refinery in Richmond, many of us were already suspicious. After all, this refinery – built over 100 years ago – had a bad history of accidents, including an explosion that sent 1,200 people to the emergency room in 1999. Local activists had been fighting Chevron for years, charging that the refinery was a clear example of environmental injustice: the 69,000 people who live within three miles of the refinery have income levels 43% lower than the Bay Area average, and 43% are Latino and 31% African-American.

Plus, this is the same corporation that sued Nigerian villagers that had the gall to try to hold Chevron accountable for its involvement in killing community protestors in 1998, and that is refusing to acknowledge responsibility for dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Soon, researchers from Communities for a Better Environment discovered Chevron’s real purpose: the planned “expansion” of their Richmond refinery wouldn’t actual result in increased gasoline production at all. Rather, the goal was to convert the facility to be able to refine heavier, dirtier crude oil (resulting, of course, in more pollution for Richmond).

Where would this heavier, dirtier crude be coming from? Well, I’ll give you a hint: Chevron is planning to invest billions (but won’t admit how much) in two different projects in the Alberta Tar Sands. And Tar Sands oil is – you guessed it – much heavier and dirtier than conventional crude oil.

So we decided that we weren’t going to take Chevron’s one-two punch (environmental injustice in Richmond and Alberta) sitting down. In March 2008, a coalition of groups, including RAN, shut down the front entrance to Chevron’s Richmond refinery; 24 of them were arrested. And for the last three years – in 2007, 2008, and 2009 – we’ve organized protests at Chevron’s shareholder meeting at their headquarters in San Ramon; this year, seven people blockaded Chevron’s front entrance, while community activists from Richmond, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Burma went inside the shareholder meeting to confront Chevron’s executives, and hold them responsible for the injustices their company had committed in their communities.

And while taking to the streets, we also attended dozens of regulatory meetings and hearings, in order to stop the plant’s permits from being approved. We demanded that Chevron “cap the crude”: that they accept regulations preventing them from refining heavy, dirty crude. The Richmond planning commission at first agreed with the idea of a “crude cap” – and then mysteriously changed its mind several weeks later. The whole time, Chevron executives steadfastly denied that they planned on refining Tar Sands oil – but also refused to accept a crude cap (which wouldn’t have any effect on their operations if they weren’t planning on refining dirtier oil).

Finally, in July 2008, the permit went to the Richmond City Council. During 12 hours of hearings (which I sat through all 12 hours of), hundreds of community members stayed up until 2 am pleading for Chevron’s permit to be rejected – and Chevron employees, paid by their company to be at the hearings, defended the company and attacked (in one case, physically) the community members opposing the expansion. And in the end, the Richmond City Council voted 5-4 to approve the permit. One particularly awesome city council member then publicly accused Chevron of striking a backroom deal with three of the council’s members – and then stood up, applauded the community protesters, and walked out on the meeting.

But then, Chevron’s luck began to change – proving that while you can buy a city council, you can’t beat the people when they have justice on their side.

In November 2008, Richmond voters kicked out two pro-Chevron city council members, replacing them with solid progressives. They also passed Measure T, which forces Chevron to pay the city $26 million per year in taxes.

Then, several months later, three environmental groups sued Chevron and the City of Richmond, arguing that the city approved a highly flawed environmental impact report, and that Chevron should be sent back to the drawing board. And the judge saw right through Chevron’s shenanigans, and ruled on June 11 that the environmental impact report was in fact flawed.

But Chevron ignored the court’s ruling – saying that it was going to appeal – and just continued construction work. So the three environmental groups petitioned the judge to issue and injunction forcing Chevron to stop work.

And today, Judge Barbara Zuniga ordered Chevron to stop work on its refinery expansion within 60 days.

This is a huge victory for environmental justice. It’s a huge victory for the coalition of groups – Communities for a Better Environment, West County Toxics Coalition, Asian-Pacific Environmental Network, Amazon Watch, Direct Action to Stop the War, Global Exchange, and RAN, among many others – who have fought for years to halt this expansion.

This fight definitely isn’t over yet. Chevron is going to appeal the ruling. And if they lose the appeal, it still only means that they have to go back to the drawing board on this project; they can still redo the environmental impact report, and re-submit it to the city.

But this time, they’re going to face a city council in which two of Chevron’s cronies have since been voted out of office.

And they’re also going to be facing off against a people’s movement that isn’t going to stop fighting this plan until Chevron stops willfully trampling on the health of poor people of color in Richmond, and starts running a refinery that is clean enough that Chevron’s CEO would be willing to live next door to it.

CAP THE CRUDE! ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOR RICHMOND NOW!

A little effort can go a long way towards reversing global warming.

Check out episode 6 of the 10 day adventure of RAN and Substance educating and mobilizing people to stop the Tar Sands, with rock bands Propagandhi and Strike Anywhere

Amazon Rainforest & Brazilian Cerrado

Mobilization of Indigenous People of the Cerrado (MOPIC)
$5,000 to support the production of a documentary focusing on Bunge and Cargill’s operations in the heart of the Brazilian Cerrado in Mato Grosso to raise awareness and be used as an organizing tool to engage and empower communities on the frontlines of soy expansion, some of whom have fields coming right up to the border of their titled land.

Associação Indígena Kïsêdjê
$4,000 to support a gathering of members of the four Kisedje communities to organize and education all Kisedje people about agribusiness, its threats, and the Indigenous movement in the Brazilian Cerrado currently challenging the expansion of soy production.

Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP)
$3,000 to provide emergency support to the Indigenous movement in the Peruvian Amazon carrying out blockades to demand a suspension of oil, gas and mining concessions in the Amazon, and the repeal of several new laws drafted to comply with a free trade agreement with the United States, which take away community land rights and allow companies to enter Indigenous land with no prior consultation or even warning.

Note: RAN channeled an additional $5,000 to AIDESEP in emergency support through Global Greengrants Fund. Here is an update on the situation from a previous Understory post.

Shinai
$3,000 to support Amo Amazonia, a week of artistic and cultural events to bring the color and life of the Amazon to the streets of Lima and the hearts of the Peruvian people to help educate the general public and shift attitudes in the wake of the recent blockades and conflict between the government and Indigenous peoples defending their rights and land.

Comision Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz
$3,000 to support work on behalf of Emberá communities living in the lower Atrato, Colombia, an area rich in minerals and expanding palm oil plantations, by a legal case in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and pressuring the government to enforce its denouncement of paramilitary violence and the illegal expansion of plantations onto community land without consent.

Canadian Boreal Forest

Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN)
$4,000 to support community organizing to push for free, prior and informed consent and other land reform in Ontario building from the government’s commitment to protect 225,000 square kilometers of the Far North Boreal region.

Boreal Action Project
$3,000 to support a cross-cultural action camp in Manitoba, Canada between urban activists and youth and Elders from Indigenous communities to discuss methods of furthering mutual goals and build campaign, media, and direct action skills.

Grassy Narrows Women’s Drum Group (on behalf of Grassy Narrows youth)
$5,000 to support a three day gathering of youth from Grassy Narrows (who were the catalysts and initiators of the community’s blockade of their traditional territory) and other First Nations communities, including workshops on traditional skills and leadership building, sweat lodges and traditional feasts and discussions led by Indigenous leaders on tribal and treaty history and Indigenous land rights in a broader context.

Mushkegowuk Environmental Research Centre
$3,000 to support a First Nations youth conference, with participation from all 7 communities throughout Ontario that belong to the Mushkegowuk Council, focused on raising awareness around the topic of climate change and providing a forum for the youth to share their concerns and vision for the future of their territory.

Other Regions

Oro Community Environmental Action Network (OCEAN)
$4,000 to support community outreach, education, and organizing in the Musa Pongani area of Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, to resist new logging permit applications covering 250,000 hectares approved by the government without consultation as 99 year leases for Musa Century Landowners Company, a syndicate of Asian companies.

The Maya Leaders Alliance
$4,000 to support a Supreme Court lawsuit that seeks to force the government to comply with its commitment to abstain from carrying out activities that might affect the value and use of Maya lands in the rainforests of southern Belize without informed consent and the development of a mechanism through which communities can apply to have their lands demarcated. This will also support a mobilization of over 200 community members to attend the trial and speak with national media.

European Environmental Paper Network (EEPN)
$3,000 to provide bridge funding to maintain a part-time coordinator for 5 months to allow EEPN to continue networking on the Shrink Project (which recently secured a commitment from the French government to reduce paper consumption by 50%), the Indonesia Paper Campaign, and the Virtual Global Summit on the paper industry.

Why would I fly across the country on my own dime knowing I would most likely end up in jail in one of the poorest parts of America?

Well, have you ever heard of MTR?

Don’t feel bad, my friends are intelligent well-read and informed people, but most of them had never heard of MTR (Mountain Top Removal) either.

So, I went to Coal River to help bring much needed attention to this hidden, criminal (but somehow legal) form of mining. I was honored to be joining an inspiringly brave group of concerned Americans, which included – NASA climate scientist James Hansen who was among the first to sound the alarm on the climate crisis. The sharp, charismatic, 94 year old, former West Virginia U.S. Representative and Secretary of State Ken Hechler, who was the first congressman to introduce a Federal bill to abolish strip mining in 1971. (If passed the bill could have prevented this mess we find ourselves in). And Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforests Action Network who is committed to ending to this terrible, destructive practice. I was deeply moved to be arrested with those affected by MTR in Kentucky, and the many local residents fighting for their very lives, including a half dozen senior citizens, canes, walkers and all.

Me with Dr. James Hansen at Marsh Fork Elementary School

Mountain Top Removal is a devastatingly destructive form of mining and has already destroyed 2,000,000 acres in the Appalachian Mountains.

Coal companies have literally blown up over 500 mountain tops to access the coal seams and then dumped the refuse into the valleys below, killing over 3000 miles of HEADWATER streams. The EPA just gave the go ahead for an additional 42 mountaintops to be blown off with another 6 permits pending.

Mountain Top Removal leaves behind a virtual hideous moonscape of devastated earth, billions of gallons of poisonous toxic sludge, and boarded up towns with dramatically high rates of cancer.

Don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for, and am deeply indebted to the miners working in coalmines and on MTR projects who risk their lives daily to bring power to our country. I understand they feel threatened by anything that might take away their jobs. And, I don’t want to see them lose more jobs, as 75% of mining jobs have already been lost to the machines and explosives of MTR.

While it takes fewer miners to remove coal with Mountain Top Removal there are just as many dangers, accidents and fatalities! It is a cheaper way for the companies to mine and that’s why it’s becoming so pervasive.

Yesterday, I received this email from a woman in Virginia -

Dear Daryl,
Thank you so much for coming to West Virginia and trying to save our mountains from Mountain top removal. I am a 9th generation Appalachian and it pains us to see what is happening. If it was not for the Internet I wouldn’t have known about your efforts. Massey has quite a bit of influence of the local media in the coalfields. I am sorry you were arrested but I thank you for standing up for what is right.  We need to work on sustainable communities here in the mountains so that coal miners will have opportunities for jobs not so dangerous. My brother works, when he can’t find anything else, at the mines driving the large dump trucks that haul the coal out of the pits. It’s dangerous work even if you are not underground. You just wouldn’t believe the equipment they give them to work with. This one site he was in this massive huge dump truck that the floorboard was rusted out with open holes. Rocks would fly back into the cab from the tires. And when it rains, it’s a mudslide. One of his co -workers was killed when the dump truck went over an embankment last year. Reporting gets you fired. And yet these workers will defend the job because there is nothing else. So thank you for standing up with us. We do appreciate it.

Then there’s the sickness…

According to WVU’s institute for health policy research, coal county residents are more likely to suffer from chronic heart, lung and kidney diseases, cancers and generally suffer from excess numbers of premature death. There’s a high cancer risk for up to 1 out of every 50 Americans living near the more than 100 billion gallons of toxic sludge in the clay-lined and unlined  (the majority unlined) coal ash landfills and slurry ponds, such as the TVA Kingston ash sludge landfill that collapsed into the Emory River in December.

Tennessee Valley Authority officials consistently have said the ash spilled in December from the utility’s Kingston Fossil Plant wet landfill in Harriman, Tenn., and in January from its Widows Creek pond in Stevenson, Ala., is non-hazardous…  but after the spill, regulatory and independent testing have found high levels of toxicity in the spilled waste and raw water where the two spills occurred. 31 of the landfills and slurry ponds in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama are on or near major waterways!

The slurry pond above the Marsh fork elementary school where we held our protest holds 2.8 billion gallons (it’s one of the smallest ponds – one nearby in brushing fork holds 9 billion gallons) of sludge in unlined pits containing arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

Marsh Fork Elementary School site and toxic holding pond

Tragically but predictably in coal river valley, the children are often sick with headaches and asthma and of the 200 students and teachers at Marsh fork elementary school cancer rates are higher than average.

Three teachers have died from cancer and one is struggling with disease now.

In 2005 one student died from ovarian cancer at age seventeen and another was still battling ovarian cancer.

Today I received this from a man in Raleigh County, West Virginia –

West Virginia. It is hell.
Every morning a 6 am my cat starts coughing. My eyes burn, my nose burns (sometimes bleeds), I get ill, and my health continues to fall apart. I got two forms of cancer, I can’t drink the water.. and we are 15 miles from Marsha Fork where they are making (was supposed to be shut down) a cyanide based pesticide that in an accident killed 1800 people in India. My kid is lead poisoned, my wife is- and in a mile radius 10 people have had heart attacks or died from whatever is here. The dust is full of arsenic and the Massey power plants create a blue haze which is really sulfuric acid. EPA won’t come near this place. It is owned by the coal industry. Thousands, who live here and are dying from 100 miles of rivers under coal sludge, Do the earth a favor and check on this and if you feel like improving our life send us a ticket out of here. I am sending you a picture of my son. He is being poisoned here. It breaks my heart. We cannot even get workman’s comp and have huge families. We are the poor of southern West Virginia..

State regulators are telling the people that it’s an “improvement” to flatten a forested mountain, seed it with grass and hope that some shrubs will grow – and then allow hunters who have signed “the appropriate waivers of liability, indemnifications and assumptions of risks” to hunt whatever animals might choose to inhabit such barren fields.

As humorist Dave Barry says, we’re not making this up, although we wish we were.

Let me make one thing clear…  there is no such thing as clean coal!!!

I wish President Obama would stop using the term and take CEQ chief Nancy Sutley and EPA head Lisa Jackson to visit these unfortunate mining sites under their jurisdiction.

When we flip the switch to turn our lights on, most of us have no idea where that power comes from. According to the U.S. dept. of energy, more than 50% of our electricity comes from coal.

Coal emits much more carbon (CO2) per unit of energy than oil and natural gas. From the acid drainage of mines polluting rivers and streams, to the release of mercury and other toxins when its burned into the atmosphere, the fine particulates that wreak havoc on human health, and the colossal waste, coal pollutes every step of the way.

“Clean coal” is the industry’s attempt to “clean up” its dirty image – the industry’s green wash buzzword. It is not a new type of coal. “Clean coal” methods only move pollutants from one waste stream to another.  Coal is a dirty business!

The good news is we have a solution! A study of the long-term benefits of INFINITE Wind Power versus FINITE coal MTR in Coal River Mountain, West Virginia already exists. They show “excellent potential” for efficiency, productivity and economic benefit. Though it doesn’t have short-term financial returns, wind promises to provide clean, inexpensive energy and offer scores of safe jobs for the long term. Just check out the staggering figures from a report released by the American Wind Energy Association “wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from the previous year”. Renewable energy will continue to grow exponentially where as mining jobs have decreased or remained relatively stagnant at “81,000 workers” for the over 20 years, according to the 2007 U.S. dept of energy report.

I can understand why those who live in coal towns are frustrated, because while we have this technology available to us NOW – it is still just “a promise” in these regions.

Being led away by the police

It’s imperative we let our president, our elected public servants and entrepreneurs know that this is where we want our investment to be directed.

Hopefully some wise, forward thinking heroes will step up the plate, build the wind farm and take this incredible win, win, wind, opportunity to bury the dirty dinosaur of Mountain Top Removal forever.

Daryl Hannah
http://www.crmw.net/
http://www.appvoices.org/
http://ilovemountains.org/
http://www.ram.org/obamamtr

You can follow Daryl on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dhlovelife

JP Morgan Chase has survived the past year of turmoil in the financial sector and is now one of the strongest and largest financial institutions in the United States. But while JP Morgan Chase is a leader in the financial sector, they are no leader for the environment. JP Morgan Chase is one of the largest financiers of new coal fired power plants as well as mountaintop removal coal mining. In fact, JP Morgan Chase is one of a very few banks who are willing to finance Massey Energy – one of the most destructive and devastating MTR companies in Appalachia. Its time for JP Morgan Chase to show leadership and to stop their investments in MTR and new coal plants – now!

RAN activists in New York are working with the Sierra Club, the New York Action Network, New York PIRG, and the Waterkeeper Alliance to tell JP Morgan Chase to stop financing dirty coal – join us! If you live near New York City, contact Jeremy to get involved with weekly actions targeting JP Morgan Chase in their home city.

See you in the streets!

-Annie

The goal of the website is to create an international network of people willing to commit civil disobedience to prevent climate change. And given that the Mobilization for Climate Justice – which will coincide with the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen – is happening five months from today, now is the time to get involved in taking direct action to stop climate change.

Sign up today! (And if civil disobedience isn’t really your thing, you can always help out by buying an action offset to help other people get trained, or pay bail.)

“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. 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.” 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.

Check out episode 5 of the 10 day adventure of RAN and Substance educating and mobilizing people to stop the Tar Sands, with rock bands Propagandhi and Strike Anywhere

On Thursday, June 18, 14 people were arrested as they daringly took over and scaled a coal-scooping 20-story dragline in Twilight, WV.

On Tuesday, June 23, 31 people (including climatologist James Hansen, actress Darryl Hannah, Goldman prize winner Judy Bonds, RAN Executive Director Michael Brune and many other West Virginia and Appalachian residents) crossed onto mining site (despite a large number of angry miners and their families) to commit a non-violent civil disobedience.

Now, the blogosphere is getting in on the act. Popular political blog the Daily Kos is calling for President Obama to visit mountaintop removal sites in the Appalachian Mountains.

In a very pointed post, the Daily Kossaks say:

However there are those in your own administration who are telling you that you should not insert yourself more powerfully into the issue of mountaintop removal. That you should step back, wait for Congress, and use the power of your office to constrain, rather than end, this practice. Mr. President, those people are wrong. You cannot bargain with mountaintop removal, any more than you can make a deal with a disease. Mountaintop removal mining is unsupportable — and unconscionable. It’s not needed to meet America’s energy needs. It’s not needed to provide jobs in Appalachia. It’s simply not needed.

Come and see for yourself, Mr. President. When you’ve seen it, you’ll know what to do.

They also have an online action asking people to go to Twitter and send this message:

President Obama. Go to West Virginia. See for yourself what Mountaintop Removal is doing to the land, water, and people. #mtr

Blogger Jeff Biggers has now posted the call on Huffington Post, and West Virginia Blue is also putting it out.

WE NEED YOU TO POST AND REPOST THIS MESSAGE. Activists are risking life, limb and liberty to expose and stop this horrible practice, please do everything you can to support them.

Need more info?

This week the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works held the first hearings on Moutaintop Removal in a generation. This hearing will help to raise the importance of the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696) and the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310), twin bills that are hoping to finally put an end to this practice.

But even if the bills get passed, that’s no guarantee. After all, those who passed the Clean Water Act thought they had stopped Mountaintop Removal. They didn’t know that administrations from Reagan to Obama would spend their time debating the meaning of “waste” vs “debris” vs “fill,” all the while allowing the mountains to fall. It will take both good legislation, and good administration to make this procedure stop.

Worried that stopping mountatintop removal would threaten our electricity supply? MTR is a small part of the coal used in the United States and provides less than 3% of our electricity. It can easily be replaced by other sources. If it stopped tomorrow, nobody’s lights would go out.

Worried that stopping mountaintop removal would cost jobs in Appalachia? MTR actually competes with other forms of coal mining that require more people. The first thing that would happen if MTR were ended is that there would be more jobs in mining. Besides, there are already three times as many people in the area working on tourism rather than mining. MTR threatens to take those jobs away forever. If you think that MTR jobs are the “only good jobs in the state,” you simply don’t know the area. Not only that, but studies have shown that many MTR sites are well suited for renewable energy projects that would generate more jobs, more revenue, and save the mountains.

In 2007 a wind potential study was commissioned to see if there was the potential to place wind turbines on Coal River Mountain. The wind potential study and the following economic study found that it is possible to place 328 MW of wind energy on Coal River Mountain. That’s enough to power 70,000 West Virginia Homes and provide permanent jobs and $1.7 million in taxes to the county every year.

Unfortunately, Massey Energy is applying for permits to mountaintop removal mine the mountain which would destroy the wind potential. This is the last mountain left standing in the area. Please help save it.

Worried that people in the area don’t want MTR to end? Surveys show that 2 out of 3 West Virginia voters oppose mountaintop removal. And the more knowledge or experience with MTR they have, the more likely they are to oppose it.

Appalachian Voices has great materials, links, and images (including those seen below). If you’re looking for more information, they’re a great resources.