Kayford Mountain

After a successful mobilization a few weeks ago in Washington D.C., the mountain justice movement is meeting again this weekend for Mountain Justice Fall Summit on Kayford Mountain, West Virginia. Kayford is the home of anti-MTR activist Larry Gibson.

Expect lots of good stuff to be happening at Kayford this weekend.

Mountain Justice Fall Summit on Kayford Mountain!

This October 22nd-24th, the 5th annual Mountain Justice Fall Summit will be held on Kayford Mountain in the Southern West Virginia coalfields. Coming on the heels of Appalachia Rising, we are building momentum and standing together in the coalfields for the abolition of surface mining.

Stand up for the mountains and future of Appalachia.
Be a part of a mass movement that says stop mountaintop removal and hire West Virginians to reclaim whats already been destroyed.

Below is a link to the Schedule for this weekend’s event, as well as a link to the Orientation page for the weekend.

* Mountain Justice Fall Summit Schedule
* Mountain Justice Fall Summit Orientation Packet
* Fall Summit QuarterSheet

Over 500 mountains have been destroyed and over 1,000 miles of streams have been buried in valley fills. Mountaintop Removal (MTR) continues to cause irreversible damage to the environment and aquatic systems that thousands of people rely on for food, water, and homes. In 1986, coal companies began stripping Kayford Mountain. Since then, “the slow motion destruction of Kayford Mountain has been continuous – 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” according to Larry Gibson, whose family has been living on Kayford since the 1700′s.

Mountaintop removal affects thousands of Appalachians on a daily basis. “We’re here on a mission, our mission is simple, we want our mountains,” said local resident Adam Hall during Appalachia Rising, “…Because every day…we grow. Our voices are heard. We get louder, and as we grow…the coal companies’ resources, they shrink, day in and day out. We will have our day. We will win this fight. No more MTR. No more sludge dams. No more!”

This devastating practice can not go on. Come join us for the Mountain Justice Fall Summit on Kayford Mountain, October 22-24, for a weekend of workshops and a day of action on an MTR site. For more info, contact mjfallsummit@gmail.com or 304-854-1937, or click here to register now!

Cross Posted from Climate Ground Zero

Homeland Security communique intercepted!

The Climate Ground Zero Ministry of Information recently came into possession of this communication between quasi-military law enforcement agencies. The “Pennsylvania Intelligence Bulletin #131″, published by the PA Department of Homeland Security (PADHS) identifies Climate Ground Zero as a “militant environmentalist organization” dedicated to ending mountaintop removal. We at Climate Ground Zero would like to thank the DHS for this honorable distinction.

militant: adj. – vigorously active and aggressive, especially in support of a cause

environmentalist: n. – any person who advocates or works to protect the air, water, animals, plants, and other natural resources from pollution or its effects

Sharing this honor with us were our longtime friends at Rainforest Action Network, for their work on mountaintop removal financiers UBS and PNC Bank, and all the good people working against Marcellus Shale gas drilling (see Shaleshock Alliance, Finger Lakes Earth First!, Marcellus Earth First! Network), who are apparently so dangerous that even movie showings and township zoning meetings are listed as “dates of interest.”

Climate Ground Zero was recognized for our recent action blockading the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection as well as our action in July shutting down a highwall miner on Coal River Mountain.

The Dept. of Homeland Security clearly has a crack team on this case. They even intercepted a “communication shared among environmental organization” informing them that 2010 would be a “kick ass year” for Climate Ground Zero. This top secret communication is available on Rainforest Action Network’s Understory blog.

The Intelligence Bulletin concludes:

“The DC sit-in and the above-mentioned West Virginia blockade were relatively successful, easily accomplished and only required a minimum of activists. They both may serve as inspiration for similar groups and lone-wolf eco-militant cells seeking to obtain publicity for their respective causes.”

We certainly hope so.

Activists Block Entrance to DEP Headquarters,
Condemn Failed Enforcement

CHARLESTON, W.V. Protesters associated with Climate Ground Zero blocked the entrance to the headquarters of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) today. Joe Hamsher, 23, and Sarah Seeds, 60, are chained to a concrete-filled metal barrel that is blocking the front door of the DEP office complex in Charleston. The activists painted the following statement on the barrel: Department of Easy Permits: Closed.

The human rights activists staged the sit-in in order to bring attention to what they believe is the DEP’s failure to enforce the Clean Water Act by permitting mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia.

“The DEP is taking part in sins of permission,” said Seeds. “Permitting mountaintop removal is permitting the poisoning of this bioregion.”

The protesters specifically sought to shed light on the DEP’s new permitting guidance for implementing water quality standards in the coalfields, which it announced earlier this month. The new permitting guidance, the protesters said, is meant to circumvent the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) much stricter water quality standards, thus paving the way for continued pollution of West Virginia’s waterways by coal operators.

“There is no way to operate a mountaintop removal mine without violating the Clean Water Act. Even Don Blankenship admitted that in Charleston when he debated Robert Kennedy” said West Virginia native Joe Hamsher. “The DEP ought to step up and do their job by enforcing the Clean Water Act. But instead, Randy Huffman, and his boss Joe Manchin, try to find loopholes around it.”

According to the Charleston Gazette in an article published on August 12, the DEP”s new permitting guidance is a direct response to the EPA’s decision in April to more strictly regulate the amount of chlorides, sulfides and heavy metals that coal operators are allowed to dump in West Virginia”s streams and rivers.

Upon announcing the new guidelines, DEP secretary Randy Huffman called on the EPA to give deference to its new policy. “We trust the EPA will give deference to West Virginia’s guidance document, as it was created to satisfy outlines in the Clean Water Act,” Huffman said.

On August 13, however, the EPA responded to the DEP in a public statement that reaffirmed the federal agency’s regulatory authority over the DEP and promised a review of the DEP’s new permitting guidance.

“We look forward to reviewing West Virginia’s new water quality guidance,” wrote the EPA. “In the meantime, the EPA’s guidance stands and we will continue to use it to ensure that mining permits issued in West Virginia and other Appalachian states provide the protection required under federal law.”

Meanwhile, activists with Climate Ground Zero say they will continue to do everything they can to hold accountable the government agencies that permit mountaintop removal mining.

“DEP will be held accountable for its crimes against West Virginia,” said Hamsher.

In addition to putting pressure on the DEP, Climate Ground Zero and its allies will be gathering in Washington D.C. on September 25 through September 27 for Appalachia Rising, a mass mobilization to call for an end to mountaintop removal mining and bring the issue to the national stage.

MARFORK, W.Va. – Protestors associated with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice have locked to and shut down a highwall miner on Coal River Mountain today. Colin Flood, 22, and Katie Huszcza, 21, are locked to the mining equipment on Massey Energy’s Bee Tree Surface Mine, near to the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment. Their banner states “Save Coal River Mountain” alongside images of ginseng, a morel, a deer and a bear.

The human rights activists locked down in order to bring attention to the many local resources that will be lost if blasting on Coal River Mountain continues. This destruction led the four protesters, including 22-year-old Jimmy Tobias and 20-year-old Sophie Kern, both of whom acted as direct support, to take part in the action. “These mountains are home to some of the most biologically diverse temperate forests in the world and contain a variety of precious flora and fauna including edible and medicinal plants that can save lives, a wide array of extremely nutritious mushrooms, old growth forest and an abundance of deer and trout,” Huszcza said. “Coal River Mountain is priceless.”

Local resident Ed Wiley laments the loss of wildlife caused by the construction of the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment, built in what was once some of the densest, oldest forest on the mountain.

“You could look off through the woods there and see a big Mamma bear with three or four cubs,” he says “But now they go on in there and remove the timber, and then start removing the overburden, and Momma bears with their cubs don’t come out of their dens until about the end of May, so they’re getting buried alive.”

“When the timber is gone, when the topsoil is gone, when the air and water are destroyed, the less than 4 percent of our nation’s energy needs that mountaintop removal provides will be small consolation,” said Flood, one of the four protestors, “The coal companies and land companies are blasting this land, ruining its rivers and poisoning its people for the sake of flat screen TVs, pick-up trucks and profit margins.”

The activists are spotlighting dangers associated with the massive Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment, which is permitted to contain 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal waste and estimates put the current level at seven billion gallons. Brushy Fork’s foundation is built on a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines. If the foundation were to collapse, as in Martin Co., Ky., the slurry would engulf communities as far as 14 miles away, according to Marfork Coal Co.’s emergency warning plan regarding the impoundment.

“The Brushy Fork sludge dam places the downstream communities in imminent danger. The threat of being inundated by a wall of toxic sludge is always present. Blasting next to this dam increases this risk at the same that it destroys the opportunity for renewable wind energy,” said Vernon Haltom, co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, in reference to the Coal River Wind Project.

“The protesters expect a long fight before blasting on Coal River Mountain stops and they remain committed to that fight,” said Tobias, one of the members of the support team. “This is a fight for the heart of Appalachia and the soul of America,” he said. “Land and freedom have always gone hand in hand. When you strip bare the land, you strip bare freedom. We won’t stop until the land is safe in the hands of those in the community who care for it.”

“It [the destruction of wilderness] makes mountaintop removal an act of treason,” Flood said.

Climate Ground Zero’s action campaign, begun in February of last year, has kept up a sustained series of direct actions since that time, continuing decades-long resistance to strip mining in Appalachia.

Every day, their mountaintop removal mining operations destroy a little more of our natural heritage. It depopulates communities. It poisons the ground water. Their underground operations received international attention after Massey’s constant shirking of federal regulations led to the deaths of 29 miners in the Upper Big Branch mine in the Coal River Valley. Their mines still receive thousands of safety violations and they contest 95% of them. They really don’t care. It’s all merely a few bumps in the road. (Of course those bumps are the bodies of their workers that they write off as expendable.) All of this is done so that their executives can rule Appalachia like feudal lords and make lots of cold cash.

But destroying the future isn’t enough for them, now they’ve decided to wage their own special brand of warfare on the past as well. In fact, a very critical piece of West Virginia labor’s past. Massey, along with Arch coal, holds permits to rip apart Blair Mountain’s history and future. Blair Mountain holds a special place in West Virginia and U.S. history. It’s seen as one of the most important historic sites in U.S. labor history and seen as a watershed moment that eventually led to workers being able to unionize and collectively bargain with industry.

In August 1921, 15,000 miners marched on Blair Mountain to free miners imprisoned by state authorities and the coal baron’s own version of Blackwater mercenaries. Sick of inhumane treatment by the coal companies, miners from West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania formed an army to unionize workers by force who lived in dire poverty in southwest West Virginia counties. On August, 25, these miners—armed with machine guns and other weapons, and wearing red bandannas around their necks—started up the mountain. The ensuing battle between these self styled “rednecks” and King Coal’s hordes, the second largest civil insurrection in U.S. history, lasted about five days and claimed dozens of lives. “No war, but the class war,” indeed. Serving the interests of the rich and powerful (not the people,) the federal government utilized air power, dropping gas and explosive bombs on the union miners. And while the miners eventually decided to lay down their arms when federal troops arrived, many viewed the battle as a failure, but it was a flashpoint that strengthened the labor movement.

No wonder Massey wants to strip mine it. It’s a dirty reminder of the masses triumphing over the classes. I typically am not a conspiracy theorist, but the current drive to strip mine Blair Mountain is too hard to ignore. The people at Massey are so nasty, it’s not inconceivable that they want to erase all remnants of a resistance to the coal barons’ iron grip (and make a huge profit while doing it.) They understand that they are in a war against the planet and the people living on it.

This time, the spirited resistance telling Massey and Arch to back the fuck off are not the typical treehuggers chaining themselves to super-dumpsters and sitting in trees, they are a dedicated band of citizens, Sierra Clubbers, historians and archaeologists. Led by Harvard Ayers, an Appalachian State anthropology professor, they are fighting it out with the West Virginia state preservation office who is pushing back hard on designating Blair Mountain a historical site. In fact, the craven political appointees have gotten Blair Mountain delisted from the National Register for Historic Places with some shifty tactics after Ayers and crew had successfully added them to the register.

Now the archaeologists are beginning a media, letter writing and advocacy campaign to save Blair Mountain. Climate Ground Zero folks are also beginning to get involved as well.

Climate Ground Zero’s legal team got a bail reduction hearing with Overseer Porter Snodgrass. Snodgrass reduced the bail to $50,000 (with an option of putting up $25,000 in property.) Obviously he still hasn’t read the 8th Amendment, but then they got the bail reduction hearing got moved to more reasonable people in the circuit court. In the circuit court, bail was reduced to $2500.

It’s nice to see that all of the West Virginia judicial system has not been corrupted by the tentacles of Massey’s coal empire.

On May 17, two Climate Ground Zero activists, EmmaKate Martin, 18, and Ben Bryant, 23, stopped traffic into Massey’s West Virginia headquarters with a lockdown device known as a tripod.

The cops showed up got them out of their blockade and took them to jail.

EmmaKate and Ben eventually went up before Boone County Magistrate Porter Snodgrass who promptly slapped them with $100,000 bail for four misdemeanors- trespassing, conspiracy, obstruction and littering. Yeah, that’s right, one hundred fucking thousand dollars for four measly misdemeanors.

A thoughtful person might reflect that we’re in what Gandhi called the “then they fight you” phase of the campaign to end mountaintop removal. King Coal has ignored us, he has laughed at us, we’ve been harassed, threatened, mountaintop community leaders have been shot at (and lots of other really bad stuff) and now we’re seeing the state authorities upping the ante as well.

Massey CEO, darling of the tea party and certified right wing nut job Don Blankenship rules southern West Virginia like a feudal kingdom while sending underground miners to their deaths and blasting the tops off of mountains. The anti-MTR movement sees Massey as the anti-Christ. The rest of the industry spends their time distancing themselves from the outlaw CEO’s attempts to burn down the whole shebang in a crusade to make as much money as possible. The distancing is happening so much that the Feds are conducting a criminal investigation around Massey’s safety violations at the Upper Big Branch mine, and none of his peers in the mining industry will have anything to do with him publicly.

But locally, Massey’s minions are fighting like bees defending the hive. Their intent is to discourage and intimidate future actions. They are using bail as punishment for speaking out politically, and it is certainly excessive and spits in the eye of traditional concepts of fairness and justice.

There used to be this thing called the Constitution and in we had the 8th Amendment-“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” I learned about it in 6th grade social studies class. Magistrate Snodgrass seems to have skipped civics that day.

And of course, there are the endless comparisons to violent offenders in the region. Here are a couple of quick facts about the criminal justice system in southern West Virginia:

• One man, after stabbing someone five times in the back, was being held on $10,000 bond and his accomplice on $6,000 bond. (EmmaKate and Ben’s bail is ten times the amount the shooter got.)
• A 19-year-old Beckley woman was arrested for wanton endangerment after shooting at another woman in a Family Dollar parking lot and was being held on $10,000 bond. (Also EmmaKate and Ben’s bail is ten times higher than this woman’s bail.)
• A man accused of four sex crimes involving a 13-year-old got out on $15,000 bond.

On the more political end, pro-MTR actors received the following penalties from local authorities:

• On July 4, 2009, on Kayford Mountain, Adam Pauley threatened to kill families who had gathered to celebrate Independence Day at the Mountain Keepers Festival. He was not arrested, but was given a $100 fine and six months unsupervised probation when found guilty of verbal assault in a February 2010 trial brought against him by Mountain Keeper Larry Gibson. (About a thousand times less than the tripod team.)
• Rock Creek resident, Ruth Tucker, slapped Judy Bonds, outspoken mountaintop removal abolitionist, at a non-violent protest on June 23, 2009. She was released on personal recognizance and given a $100 fine six months after the fact. (Another fine that is a thousand times less)
• And of course Don Blankenship, responsible for thousands of mining safety violations, the destruction of hundreds of mountains, the death of 29 deep ground miners, and just for being an out and out asshole, has yet to see the world from behind bars or the inside of a criminal court.

In places like Appalachia where there is so many “haves” and “have nots,” the systematic pattern targeting political opponents of the local establishment and fossil fuel gentry is no surprise. Now it’s a matter of fighting these injustices one by one.

If you want to support them, please donate to the legal fund.

Magistrate Snodgrass of Boone County sets two $100,000 bails for non-violent protesters

Madison, W.Va. – EmmaKate Martin and Benjamin Bryant were arrested this morning while blockading the driveway to Massey Energy’s regional headquarters in Boone county, W.Va. Magistrate Snodgrass set their bails at $100,000 each for misdemeanor charges of trespassing, conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor, obstructing an officer, and littering.

Nick Martin, EmmaKate’s older brother and participant in Climate Ground Zero’s campaign of civil resistance, stated “As I hugged my little sister following her arraignment this morning, I was awed by her calmness and high spirits. I admire her courage, and her willingness to put her freedom on the line for the well being of Appalachian communities and the environment. I will worry about her constantly until she is free. My sister is my hero!”

EmmaKate Martin was perched on a platform suspended in a tripod, a structure built with rope and three log poles, and Bryant was locked to the base of a pole. Both Martin and Bryant underwent extensive non-violence training prior to their action. Their banner read “Massey, Profits Before People & Mountains, Fight Back!”

They articulated their motives and the sense of responsibility that impelled them to act in an open letter to Massey shareholders and the American public. The letter can be read at www.climategroundzero.org/openletter. Among their top concerns are mountaintop removal and the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment on Coal River Mountain.

Climate Ground Zero’s legal team is researching the legality of the unprecedentedly high bail and will seek legal recourse.

“Boone county is not giving these bails to simply punish EmmaKate and Ben. Boone county, and the state of West Virginia, is using high bail as an intimidation tactic to deter others from standing up for the health of communities and against mountaintop removal and Massey’s mistreatment of workers,” stated Sarah Seeds veteran non-violent activist.

There is an emerging pattern of non-violent protesters receiving heavy-handed punishment while those who use violence against them are let off the hook. On July 4, 2009, on Kayford Mountain, Adam Pauley threatened to kill families who had gathered to celebrate Independence Day at the Mountain Keepers Festival. He was not arrested, but was given a $100 fine and six months unsupervised probation when found guilty of verbal assault in a February 2010 trial brought against him by Mountain Keeper Larry Gibson. Rock Creek resident, Ruth Tucker, slapped Judy Bonds, outspoken mountaintop removal abolitionist, at a non-violent protest on June 23, 2009. She was released on personal recognizance and given a $100 fine six months after the fact. Climate Ground Zero activist, Jacqueline Quimby was recently sentenced to sixty days in jail for an act of non-violent civil disobedience at a Kanawha County mine site.

Julian, W.Va. — Two Climate Ground Zero protesters are blocking the driveway to Massey Energy’s Regional Headquarters in Boone County, W.Va.. EmmaKate Martin, 18, is suspended on a platform between three interlocking poles, 30 feet above the road. Ben Bryant, 23, is locked to the base of one pole. A banner hanging from the platform reads “Massey: Profit over People & Mountains: Fight Back!”

This action precedes Tuesday’s Massey Energy Annual Shareholders Meeting in Richmond, V.A.. Mountain Justice and Union organizations, including the United Mine Workers of America, are planning to rally outside of the meeting, encouraging shareholders to take a hard look at Massey Energy and CEO Don Blankenship’s lack of corporate responsibility. Martin and Bryant are blocking the road for similar reasons, including the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining.

Mountaintop removal mining blasts mountains apart to get to the coal seams beneath, pushing the rubble into nearby valleys. The destruction leads to cracked home foundations, an increase in respiratory diseases and cancer in nearby communities, and poisoned waterways. In some cases, land that has been in families for generations is literally blown apart.

“I used to work for the coal industry, because that’s pretty much the only kind of work you can find around here,” said Junior Walk, 19, a lifelong resident of the Coal River Valley, “It didn’t really register, how much of a scale the destruction was on, until I was a guard at a mine site and I would look out over this wasteland, this moonscape.”

Coal sludge, a byproduct of washing coal to make it burn “cleaner,” is stored in large impoundments that loom over coalfield communities. The Brushy Fork Sludge Dam on Coal River Mountain, operated by Massey subsidiary Marfork Coal, is the tallest earthen dam in North America. The impoundment, permitted to hold 9 billion gallons of coal sludge, rests atop a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines, causing experts, including hydrologist Rick Eades to call its structural integrity into question. By Massey’s own estimates, if the dam were to break, it would kill 998 Coal River Valley residents. Massey is currently blasting a football field’s length away from the impoundment on Coal River Mountain.

“ . . .Something’s got to be done about it, and if no one speaks up, nothing will be,” Walk continued, “I can’t let my home be destroyed, it’s horrible and it needs to be stopped.”

Martin and Bryant released an open letter to Massey Energy’s shareholders, which can be read here.

According to their letter, Martin and Bryant intend to hold their blockade until Massey shareholders “join with the coalition of nine public institutional investors that are asking Massey to withhold support from Don Blankenship and Board of Directors Baxter F. Philips, Richard M. Gabrys, and Dan R. Moore ‘because they have failed to carry out their duties on the Safety, Environmental, and Public Policy Committee,’” and Massey ceases its mountaintop removal operations, and decommissions the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment.

This blockade follows one last September, when four activists obstructed the same road using chains and lock boxes. Three, James McGuiness, Joe Hamsher and Fred Williamson, received 20-day sentences for the stand they took that morning. This is the latest action in Climate Ground Zero’s campaign of civil resistance to mountaintop removal.

You’d think the criminal justice system in West Virginia would have better things to do (something like investigating criminal safety violations by outlaw coal companies) than seeking retribution against non-violent protesters for standing up to their corrupt legal system.

Activist Sentenced to 60 Days; Three Contempt Charges for Roselle

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 4/28/10
Kanawha County Magistrate Tim Halloran sentenced Jacqueline Quimby to 60 days in jail after a jury found her guilty of trespass, conspiracy and obstruction on Thursday, April 22. This sentence is nearly three times longer than the longest of the campaign so far. This was two days after Raleigh County Circuit Court Judge Robert Burnside, Jr., found Climate Ground Zero co-founder Mike Roselle in contempt of court for violating a June 2009 preliminary injunction for his part in the Feb. 18, Marfork Mining Office occupation, while his two companions were both acquitted of contempt.

“Once again the West Virginia judicial system is stepping up its pressure to discourage people from taking nonviolent direct action to shut down criminal mining practices. This campaign has not been stopped by jail sentences or injunctions, and we will not stop until mountaintop removal ends,” said Roselle.

Massey claimed and the court agreed that Roselle broke the civil injunction which added civil penalties for breaking trespassing laws against and interfering with the business of Massey Energy on its subsidiary properties of Alex Energy, Marfork Mining Co., Goals Coal Co. and Performance Coal Co. Roselle was also found guilty of recruiting both Hamsher and Smyth for the Marfork occupation. Roselle was assessed a $3,000 fine payable to Massey for his three counts of civil contempt.

Quimby and seven others blocked a haul road for four hours (here, here and here) last October on the Ed Coal strip mine in the Cabin Creek area of eastern Kanawha County. None of the other seven people received jail time and all took plea deals before going to trial. Jonathan Irwin, Maureen Farrell, Andrea Lai, Erika Zarowin, Ryan Olander, Will Wickham and Alex Lotorto are all serving two years of unsupervised probation.

Quimby was a first time offender with no criminal record and no previous arrests. She took the stand at her trial to explain that she had taken because of the damage done to communities and drinking water across West Virginia. Quimby volunteers full time with the Sludge Safety Project working with communities with contaminated water.

“Because of irresponsible mining, people all over West Virginia are drinking contaminated water and suffering serious health effects. People are dying. When the regulators and the courts and the lawmakers refuse to do anything to protect people, something more has to be done,” said Quimby.

The Kanawha County Prosecutor was rude and derisive throughout the trial, claiming that Quimby was trying to get her “merit badge” and belittling the seriousness of the issues raised in the trial. He even had the audacity to claim during sentencing that “giving community service would be like giving me money.”
In issuing his ruling, Mag. Halloran said that throughout the trial he was thinking about how much money this action must have cost the coal company, leading him to conclude that serious jail time was necessary.

Quimby was, however, found not guilty of a trespassing charge stemming from the October Senior Citizens March to End Mountaintop Removal.

Quimby will be excited to receive mail, at the link below this post. Assume all your mail will be read by the jail. Climate Ground Zero is also accepting donations through their website for Quimby’s commissary and other legal expenses.

How did they get in here?, Part One.
As the sun came up I was squatting in the brush looking down on our destination. It was snowy and cold, and we had hiked the two and a half miles up the holler and over a ridge, and now we could see the Marfork Coal Company headquarters below at the bottom of a tree covered slope that fell about a thousand feet before ending at the edge of a large parking lot. We saw two workers arrive, both female, and then two men, who all went inside the office to open it up as we had watched them do on earlier occasions. This time, however, as we readied to descend the slope, two of them reappeared in the parking lot with snow shovels and began clearing snow off the helicopter landing pad on the far side of the parking lot. They did this quickly, and after applying salt to the pavement, they hurried inside and all was quiet. Taking the lead, Tom went down carefully picking his way through the snow and underbrush. Joe and I sat down and slid on our asses, which was a quicker if less dignified and soon we were on the steps leading into the lobby of Marfork’s main office, a fortress protected by a bridge over the river, a guard shack and several layers of chain link and barbwire.

Once through the doors we wasted no time. We took our seat in the first three chairs in the lobby, and Tom and Joe began to chain down while I hung the banner on the doors. One employee attempted to remove Joe from his chair by force but Tom and I joined his arms and I informed him that this was a non violent protest and that we had called the media, which backed him off enough for them to finish locking their chains to the wooden chairs. Then, the security guard, in full uniform complete with Smokey the Bear hat and gun, came through the doors and asked the two women in the lobby “How did they get in here?”

But it gets better. Big Mike, Massey’s chief of security, whom we’ve gotten to know quite well over the last year, also asked the same question to the Security Guard with the Smokey the Bear hat, “How’d they get in here?” It was a question we have heard him ask on practically every one of our actions, and one that we generally refrained from answering. Big Mike was especially agitated not only because his office was in the building, but also his boss’s office, who was now in the lobby asking him; “How did they get in here?”

Big Mike was not happy, and he leaned in real close to my face and said, almost whispering; “It’s one thing when you guys go up on the strip job, but this is fucking different!” It sounded more like a threat than a statement, and I wondering how a simple sit-in at the Massey office could elicit such a bitter and hard response when I looked out the window and a watched small black helicopter touch down on the newly cleared landing pad. You guessed it! It was Big Don Blankinship himself and there was Big Mike telling him that everything was under control, but there were three Climate Ground Zero Activists chained down in his lobby.

“How did they get in here?”
Indeed!

But, some of the more interesting aspects of this work are not playing out in the coalfields and on the mine sites, but in the courts. Massey’s harshest responses can come in the form of violence by it’s employees aimed at community activists, but also from the company itself in the form of restraining orders and civil lawsuits.

Last year, Massey attempted to bar not only activists arrested on their property from returning with temporary restraining orders (TRO), but also they continue to extend them to “associates” of the activists. In Massey’s lawyers estimation, this would bar potentially thousands from trespassing and thus hold them accountable in court.

Furthermore, they are leveling high dollar lawsuits against activists for loss of profits. The 5 person tree-sit team from Jan. has been sued for $75,000. In the past these suits have been called “SLAPP” suits, or “Strategic Litigation Against Public Particpation.” As activists have gotten more effective at slowing down the rate of destruction or pushing an issue onto the national stage, the corporations and the state respond by trying to limit their ability to organize effectively by bogging them down with financial and legal burdens.

Massey’s goals with this litigation is to cause the defendants to succumb to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs or simple exhaustion and then abandon the campaign. It runs counter to the First Amendment which protects our freedom of speech.

In the 1980′s, Pacific Legal Foundation and San Luis Obispo filed a suit attempting to obtain the mailing list of the Abalone Alliance to get the group to pay for the police costs of the largest anti-nuclear civil-disobedience act in U.S. history at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. Pacific Legal Foundation lost at every court level and withdrew the suit the day before it was due to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. San Luis Obispo County v. Abalone Alliance.

Massey is now doing the same thing. All of us outside of the coalfields, need to find the best ways to join and support frontline communities and activists fighting mountaintop removal on the ground and in the courts. Solidarity is what is needed.

Read more about the dragline action.

The “Dragline 14″ needs your support! I need your support! Please donate!

Our subsequent legal costs have totaled over $23,000. Since last September, we have raised over half of it, but we still need to raise another $4,000 by early March.

I have donated to the Dragline 14 because I believe that sustaining the critical tradition of non-violent direct action is one of the only ways to ensure that we stop the destruction of eco-systems, the poisoning of communities and the contamination of precious drinking water from mountaintop removal. Together we must make a show of support for true heroes, and ensure that more follow in their footsteps.

Please donate to support the Dragline 14.

We’re mobilizing with house parties and personal appeals to friends and donors, but I need your help as well.

Please donate whatever you can ($5, $50 or $500) to help the “Dragline 14″ pay our legal costs.

For the mountains, Scott Parkin

Now two of the three activists arrested last week at the Marfork Coal Company’s offices are fighting back against their excessive bails ($5000 for two and $7500 for the third activist, Mike Roselle).

These folks are putting their health and safety on the line in resisting big coal and the corrupt legal systems. Please donate to help Climate Ground Zero fight King Coal in southern West Virginia.

BEAVER, W.Va.—Tom Smyth, and Joe Hamsher, from Charleston, W.Va., began a hunger strike in jail today in protest of the absurdity of their $5,000, cash-only bonds compared to that of violent criminals. Smyth and Hamsher went to jail last Thursday when they chained themselves to office furniture in Massey’s Marfork Mining Co., office in response to mounting permit violations and the continued blasting on Coal River Mountain. They also presented a citizen’s arrest warrant to Marfork president Christopher Blanchard, on charges of attempting to injure by poison, malicious or unlawful assault or assault of a child near a school, and wanton endangerment.

Already this month, a man accused of four sex crimes involving a 13-year-old got out on $15,000 bond. Another man, after stabbing someone five times in the back, was being held on $10,000 bond and his accomplice on $6,000 bond. A 19-year-old Beckley woman was arrested for wanton endangerment after shooting at another woman in a Family Dollar parking lot and was being held on $10,000 bond. None of these articles indicates they were restricted to cash-only, which means they’d only have to put up 10% of their total bond amount.

The protesters “cash-only” bonds mean the entire bond amount must be paid in cash, and they cannot use a bail bondsman to pay only 10% of the amount. “There is something broken in a judicial system that responds more harshly to nonviolent protesters than violent criminals, not to mention allowing Massey’s crimes to go on unpunished,” tree sitter Amber Nitchman said. Smyth and Hamsher say they will continue their hunger strike until their bonds are reduced to a reasonable amount.

This week, we commemorated the 50 year anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins that were an integral part of the civil disobedience phase of the civil rights movement. Many of the students that participated in those sit-ins were trained at the Highlander School in Tennessee near Coal River Mountain tree-sitter Eric Blevin’s home.

As we ponder our next steps in the climate action and climate justice movements, we need to remember that this sort of large scale change requires sacrifice. With sacrifice, we need support. The civil rights activists risked their lives fighting segregation in the south. Many spent long periods of time in jail. During the Greensboro sit-ins, violence and harassment of protesters often escalated.

So far, the coal industry and their political allies, inside and out of Appalachia, are fighting the anti-mountaintop removal legally (both criminal and civil), often resulting in jail time and fines. There have also been threats and acts of violence directed at community members, organizers and activists in the coalfields. Eric and his fellow tree-sitters sat in 60 ft. trees for over a week while coal company employees harassed and abused them with constant noise, bright lights, tree shaking and threats of spraying them down with fire hoses. At the end of their tree-sit, Massey Energy has sued them for $75,000 and filed for a temporary restraining order in federal court.

To me, there are a number of obvious parallels to the Greensboro sit-ins and the Coal River tree-sits. Like our predecessors in the civil rights movement, the anti-mountaintop removal movement has drawn a line in the sand to end the “pervasive and irreversible impacts” of mountaintop removal and can’t give up.

Here’s Eric’s letter from a jail in southern West Virginia:

This is in response to the article in Saturday’s paper about Amber and I coming down from our tree sit and the letter about paid, outsider environmentalists who support the EPA, which I read while sitting in the Southern Regional Jail.

I am not an outsider. I am an Appalachian. Virginia-based Massey Energy is an outsider. The people who live in the mountains and work on the mine sites work harder, longer hours and make less money than those who work at Massey’s headquarters in Richmond. All the people here should control how the land around them is used and they should profit the most from it, not people in an office far away who aren’t as impacted by the decisions they make that destroy our mountains.

I and most activists I know are not paid. We are volunteers. Groups like Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero help raise funds for legal fees and action supplies, but don’t pay people. Their money is donated by people who support the abolishment of mountaintop removal. They have budgets of just a few thousand dollars each. Massey has billions of dollars. They recently laid off workers and raised CEO Don Blankenship’s salary.

I and most activists I know do not support the EPA. They are not doing enough to stop the destruction of our mountains. While they review permits, the explosions are still going off in our home every day.

I climbed a tree to defend God’s beautiful divine creations: the people who live below the Brushy Fork sludge impoundment being threatened with imminent death by the blasting, the plants and animals being slaughtered, Coal River Mountain, our air and our water. The actions of my friends and I were nonviolent and defensive. Massey’s actions are violent and offensive. They blasted air horns and sirens at us in the trees almost nonstop for days on end. They have said that 998 people will die if the dam there fails, yet they set off explosives near it. It is an unlined earthen dam and those fail, like the one operated by TVA near my home in Tennessee that spilled 1.6 billion gallons of coal waste just over a year ago, practically destroying an entire community. Brush Fork holds back over 7 billion gallons, for now. It may not hold it back much longer if we don’t stop the blasting.

Eric Blevins

Eric Blevins stopping MTR on Coal River Mountain

Activists will most likely be undeterred by Massey’s legal actions.

Please donate to support the ongoing legal battles.

Eric Blevins Stopping the Blasting

Amber stopping blasting on Coal River Mountain

Yesterday after meeting with coalfield activists, WV Gov. Joe issued a moratorium on Massey’s use of sound machines and asked the WV state police and Raleigh County prosecutors to investigate whether Massey was endangering the sitters lives with their noise abuse.

Coal River Mountain Map

Nine-Day Tree Sit Ends, Sitters Vow Not Over Until Blasting Stops
January 29, 2010

PETTUS, WVa—After blocking Massey Energy’s operations on the Bee Tree Permit for nine days, Amber Nitchman, 19, and Eric Blevins, 28 descended from their respective trees. They had occupied the two oak trees—originally accompanied by a third tree sitter, David Aaron Smith, 23—to protest mountaintop removal and the blasting of Coal River Mountain. Upon descent, they were immediately arrested by West Virginia State Troopers. The sitters’ decision to leave the trees was made in light of the recent drop in temperature.

After a week of Massey security harassing the sitters with deafening sirens and air horns, a call-in pressure campaign was launched by Climate Ground Zero, Mountain Justice and other anti-mountaintop removal groups. The receipt of hundreds of calls from around the country led to an emergency meeting with Climate Ground Zero volunteers, the Raleigh County prosecutor and Governor Manchin. The meeting resulted in the moratorium and a call for an investigation of the abuse. The tree sit represents Climate Ground Zero’s most sustained intervention in mountaintop removal mining operations since its campaign of nonviolent direct action began last February. Volunteers know that the fight is far from over and expect work to commence on the Bee Tree site immediately. However, they see this tree sit as a victory. “It halted blasting for nine days. I think they’ve wildly succeeded with their goals,” said Climate Ground Zero volunteer Mike Bowersox. In a final communication from her perch, Nitchman captured the group’s resolve. “Its not over until the blasting is stopped,” she said.

On Jan. 26, anti-mountaintop removal activists met with WV Gov. Joe Manchin and asked that he do something about the noise abuse. Manchin’s public statement after the meeting was “We will not in any way, shape or form in this state of West Virginia tolerate any violence against anyone on any side. If you’re going to have the dialogue, have respect for each other.”

So far the abuses have not stopped.

Today a helicopter did a flyover of the tree sit, check out the pictures here.

Call Massey and Demand a Stop to Their Illegal Abuses

In response to Massey Energy’s harmful abuse of the Coal River Mountain tree sitters, call Massey’s international headquarters Monday, Jan. 25, starting at 9 a.m. and demand they immediately stop illegally using noisemakers to harass the tree sitters.

Can you call Massey?

Call Massey NOW and ask for
Baxter Phillips, President 1804-788-1807. If you can’t reach him, call the switch board at:
(804) 788-1800 -

After four days 60 ft up in the air, the treesitters, David Aaron Smith, 23, Amber Nitchman, 19 and Eric Blevins, 28, are still going strong. Massey’s sleep deprivation by air horn isn’t making things easy, and the sleet, fog, mist, and rain aren’t helping either – but every time that people have talked to them, they sound upbeat and steadfast. The sitters plan to endure the discomforts created by Massey security and the weather and hold out for as long as possible to defend Coal River Mountain.

Instead of permanently ending blasting on Coal River, Massey is trying to harass the sitters into leaving using the sound machine, hitting the platforms with a rope, cutting down nearby trees and constant flood lights. Some of the harassment has stopped, but the sound machine continues, possibly causing permanent hearing loss. We need to call Massey’s international headquarters Monday, Jan. 25, starting at 9 a.m. and demand they immediately stop illegally using noisemakers to harass the tree sitters.

The following is a sample script for the call:

Hi, I am calling to demand that Massey Energy halt blasting on Coal River Mountain and the abuse of the three tree-sitters occupying Massey’s Bee Tree property. Security personnel have been incessantly blasting noise from an air horn to keep the tree-sitters awake. This puts both the sitters and the miners at the site at risk for hearing loss, and could be considered a felony under West Virginia state law. Also at risk are the lives of the 998 people who Massey predicts will be killed should the 8.2 billion gallon Brushy Fork Impoundment fail. To dynamite in the surrounding area is to gamble with the lives of the people of the Coal River Valley. The mountains of Appalachia soak up water and act as a water filtration system for millions of Americans inside of and surrounding Appalachia. To release toxins into Appalachia’s waterways puts the health of these millions in jeopardy. Please stop this abuse of our forests and our health and halt the blasting..

Let us know you called by submitted this form at the bottom of this <a href="http://climategroundzero.net/2010/01/callmasseyonjan25/

“>link

Check out this brief video of the tree sit set up:

Yesterday, West Virginia police arrested two ground support and left the area. After their departure Massey began clearing trees around the tree sit making room for cherry picker to extract the sitters. For unknown reasons, the cherry picker left the premises. Too rough a terrain? Weather? The tree-sitters are currently not located on the permit, but close to it. Regulations do require that no blasting occur when individuals are 300 feet from the blast area. The trees’ location on Coal River Mountain directly impedes on Massey Energy’s attempt to build an access road to an impoundment where the toxic leftovers from coal processing (or, “slurry”) are being held back from the communities below. Their banners state: “EPA: Halt the Blasting”, “Windmills Not Toxic Spills”, and “Save Coal River Mountain.”

In Charleston yesterday, before the Blankenship vs. Kennedy debate, a group dropped a banner off of the bridge over the Kanawha River. The action was in solidarity with the tree sit.