The activists were demanding that Ms.Jackson end blasting on Coal River Mountain in Coal River, WV. The mountain is the site of a campaign by local residents for a commercial-scale wind farm. A wind resources assessment and economic study commissioned by the group Coal River Mountain Watch in 2008 revealed that Coal River Mountain has enough wind potential to provide electricity for over 85,000 homes.

Instead, the EPA has allowed Massey Energy, one of the largest coal producers in the country, to begin blasting at Coal River Mountain as part of mountaintop removal mining excavation. The blasting is occurring near the Brushy Fork impoundment, the largest slurry dam in Appalachia. Critics of mountaintop removal argue that an estimated 1,000 lives are at risk if the dam at Brushy Fork were to fail. Last December, a containment pond in Kingston, Tennessee burst, flooding the area with over one billion gallons of coal ash sludge, producing the largest environmental disaster in United States history.

Attendees to the APHA’s annual meeting were given flyers on their way into the opening session urging them to “Tell Lisa Jackson: Save Coal River Mountain.” Ms. Jackson and the EPA have been the targets of a campaign by a coalition of environmental groups working to end mountaintop removal for several months.

We called this protest a “Carnival of Destruction” because JPMC’s investments in dirty coal truly are the Most Shocking Show on Earth. Check out pictures below:

-Annie

Update: Watch this video from the action!

-Annie

Dear Mr. Dimon:

I am writing to you about an urgent issue – to respectfully request you end JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s support of the coal industry. This industry is destroying our nation’s oldest and most diverse mountains, causing catastrophic erosion and flooding, devastating ecosystems, poisoning drinking water, and obliterating historic communities. By investing in the coal industry, JPMorgan Chase & Co. is complicit in this wholesale destruction.

Mr. Dimon, you fund six of the top eight coal mining companies responsible for mountaintop-removal coal mining in the U.S., a practice that has been described as “raping Appalachia.” Your company has underwritten more than $1 billion in new financing to Massey Energy, the largest mountaintop-removal coal mining company. Massey Energy has a deplorable record, including breaches of employee safety standards, recent violent acts at peaceful gatherings, and violating the federal Clean Water Act at least 4,500 times – resulting in a $30 million fine. Massey Energy’s CEO, Don Blankenship, has been implicated in buying the influence of Supreme Court justices in West Virginia.

As an actress and performer, I’ve been privileged to see firsthand America’s unparalleled beauty and I can state unequivocally that no place has moved me as aesthetically and spiritually as the Appalachian Mountains. I am honored to speak for this region in my capacity as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees for Waterkeeper Alliance.

There is no redeeming chapter in the story of coal. From mining it to the disposal of ash after it’s burned, the coal industry is bad for the environment, bad for our health, bad for our communities, and bad for your bank. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has emerged financially strong from the economic crisis, but it has also emerged as a top financier of coal. Investing in the coal industry, especially mountaintop-removal coal mining, is a bad corporate decision. Investing in renewable energy like wind and solar power creates at least 2.8 times the number of jobs as coal for the same investment. Investing in conservation creates 3.8 as many jobs as coal, and mass transit investments create more than six times as many jobs. Investing in a clean energy economy provides jobs that mountaintop-removal coal mining simply cannot.

You have spoken often about your commitment to holding JPMorgan Chase & Co. to the highest standards of corporate social responsibility, yet your actions contradict that. Mr. Dimon, please demonstrate your leadership by announcing that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will no longer be associated with mountaintop-removal coal mining, the largest ecological and social disaster being perpetrated in America today. Stop bankrolling mountaintop-removal coal mining and the coal industry.

Respectfully,

Gloria Reuben
Vice Chair, Board of Trustees
Waterkeeper Alliance

www.thedirtylie.com

Join us this Thursday, October 29th to tell JP Morgan Chase to stop funding mountaintop removal coal mining! JP Morgan Chase is the biggest financier of the devastating practice of MTR – and even funds Massey Energy, the company that has started blasting Coal River Mountain in West Virgina this week.

This Thursday’s Carnival of Destruction will highlight “The Most Shocking Show on Earth” – JP Morgan Chase’s investments in coal and MTR. Hosted by Waterkeeper Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, New York Action Network, Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth this will be an event not to be missed.

Here’s the details:
When: Thursday, October 29, 2009, from 8:00am – 11:30am
Location: JP Morgan Chase Headquarters, 270 Park Ave. (between 47th and 48th St.)

Join the ringmaster, marching band and costumed supporters.

See you on October 29!

-Annie

-Annie

Mr. Jamie Dimon
Chairman and CEO
JP Morgan Chase & Co.
270 Park Ave NY NY 10017

Dear Mr. Dimon,

I’m writing to ask that your firm reconsider one corner of its business: financing mountaintop removal for coal mining in Appalachia.

It’s probably—along with the tar sands of Canada—the dirtiest business on the continent. Dirty when it’s mined (they mean it when they say mountaintop removal—they take the top off the mountain and dump in the valley next door); dirty when it’s burned (check out asthma rates near urban coal plants); and dirty for eons to come, with its effect on the planet’s climate.

As I understand it, a third of the coal moving out of those mountaintop sites comes from companies you guys have recently been involved in financing. By my definition above that’s dirty money, and it would be a credit to your reputation if you found the wherewithal to say no to this particular trade.

Bill McKibben
Ripton Vt. 05766

In response to this announcement, concerned DC residents went to the EPA headquarters to show their support for this decision, but to also remind the EPA that much more needs to be done to abolish mountaintop removal. Many passersby stopped to learn more about the issue and many of whom work within the Agency noticed our presence. Employees were even opening their windows to lean out and ask what we were up to.

While this decision was an important one, many coalfield residents and organizers like myself, question whether this announcement will hold its course. In a post by Jeff Biggers in the Nation entitled “Coalfield Uprising“, he explains how this decision has only strengthened activists resolve.

 “While we appreciate the EPA making this step to bring back enforcement of the Clean Water Act,” says Lorelei Scarbro, an organizer with Coal River Mountain Watch and a coal miner’s widow whose garden and hillside orchards border a proposed mountaintop removal site in West Virginia, “we will continue to come to Washington, DC, until mountaintop removal’s irreversible devastation to our communities and waterways is halted.”

It is hard for those who live under active blasting to see this as a sign of hope, as I mentioned before, this decision does nothing to address the destruction that is taking place daily throughout West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Tennesee and Virginia.

Earlier this spring, Bo Webb, a coal miner’s son and Vietnam veteran sent an open letter to Obama in which he wrote “My family and I, like many American citizens in Appalachia, are living in a state of terror. Like sitting ducks waiting to be buried in an avalanche of mountain waste, or crushed by a falling boulder, we are trapped in a war zone within our own country.”

In response to the EPA’s decision Teri Blanton of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth remarked, “This is great news, but it will take more than regulations to end the destruction. Mountaintop removal and valley fills should be banned.”

 EPA has the authority to veto the permits, but only time will tell if they will use the full extent of their oversight to block this destructive practice and put an end to Mountaintop removal once and for all.

Today the EPA made another important step forward in protecting the communities of Appalachia from the disastrous impacts of mountaintop removal mining. Under a process called “Enhanced Coordination Procedures” the EPA has put a temporary hold on 79 permits, which will now undergo further review before their fate is determined.

So did the EPA stop any MTR permits today? No, and Ken Ward gives a good explanation on his blog:

“But as the EPA statement said, EPA officials have determined that all 79 of these permits as they are currently proposed would not comply with the Clean Water Act. EPA is not denying the permits (though under some circumstances, EPA has the authority to override Corps of Engineers decisions to issue permits). Instead, EPA is saying that all 79 of these permits need to be more closely reviewed and perhaps changed so that they would comply with the law.”

You can read more about the Obama administration’s “enhanced coordination procedures” for reviewing these permits on EPA’s Web site here.  The list of 79 permits is here.

So what now you ask? Well we watch with extreme scrutiny during the next 2 months as the permits go under review. Last week during the finalization of this list I went out with other RAN activists and flyered the EPA office in DC during employees lunch break. We spoke with hundreds of employees, many of whom commented that they work on this issue. Its important that they know we are watching.

I’ll keep you updated and if you are ever in the DC area come down to the East Building of the EPA Headquarters at the corner of 12th and Constitution. You’ll likely find me there, with a tireless team of activists until mountaintop removal is ended once and for all.

And just last year I saw her accept a Goldman Environmental Prize for her efforts as an organizer working to save the mountains and the communities she’s from and committed to. As a result of efforts and this attention Maria is gaining some notoriety, and with it there are pros and cons. On the one hand the issue is certainly gaining awareness which is critical if we are going to then raise the consciousness that will lead to an end to this terrible, destructive assault – on the other, those that support Coal (or more likely, the few that benefit the most from it) see Maria as more of a strident agitator than ever.

She’s an 8^th generation “mountain holler girl” who lives where her forebears made their home. She’s encircled by mountains – or their remains – and is just at the back of the town of Bobwhite, West Virginia. She has a teenage son and daughter, and a bunch of baby kittens, and two dogs – one her pet, the other for security.

One of Maria's new kittens

There is also a big, shiny chain link fence around her house. You don’t see many of these in this part of the world. This is for protection – something most folks here don’t need as much as Maria and her family does, though there are several who can very much relate to this necessity.

There used to be two mountains here in front of Maria's house

But it hasn’t always been this way. Only since the death threats, the killing of her daughter’s dog that she raised from a pup delivered to her school bus stop, the trucks trying to run her off the road, and more. Recently the coal trains that pass by her house have photographers at the back, cameras pointed her way.

Maria is one of many West Virginians who has deep roots in this part of the world. The old barn has GUNNOE painted on the side – her grandfather built the barn and her Brother painted on the name. And she and her forebears were baptized in the river that runs nearby – though now the water is polluted with chemical waste, part of the “coal washing” process, so the baptisms take place in the church.

The incidence of cancer is on the rise, and given that the water tests show the presence of the same chemicals that you get from processing coal, it’s obvious there is a link between the two. And this link is killing people.

And it was when the mountains around her home began to disappear, when the flooding started as a direct result of the valley fill behind her house, when what were the Twin mountains in front of her home became one mountain, and the frogs disappeared – these were all some of the signs that the coal companies were damaging her world, and she stood up to them.

Maria isn’t one to run from a fight, and she’s not backing down from this one.

“The people around me are my friends, I’m not so worried about them. It’s the ones who come from outside to work for Massey – they’re the ones who are causing us all trouble.”

Lindytown and Twilight from Above - this gives you some idea of where and how big this is

Maria took us to visit her friend, Laura Webb, after driving us through the remains of Lindytown and Twilight – the latest community that Massey has been intimidating and buying out in an effort to depopulate what stands in the way of cheap, easy coal. Laura was one of the last to agree to a buyout – and there wasn’t much reason to stay. Her neighbors had all moved away. The coal operations around her home were literally right above her – and across from her – and behind her. There was no safe place for her or her family anymore here.

The view from Laura's front yard - one of two MTR sites and the entrance to the Twilight Mine

And even after she signed the agreement to sell her property, she was given more messages to get out. One day a truck drove up and a man on the back used a boom to pull down her phone and power lines.

And in an example of how cruel the actors behind the intimidation are, while she was out looking for a place to move her mobile home, her horse was poisoned – she returned home to find it lying on its side in distress, its water trough empty and overturned.

“I stayed up all night with him, but there was nothing I could do to save him.”

Laura Webb was intimidated by Massey Coal

When I saw her she was two days over the agreement date and had a bunch of belongings as well as her house that needed to be moved. Massey could come along at any time and claim whatever is there, even have her arrested for trespassing. For some reason – small blessings – she hadn’t been bothered further as she scrambled to get out of what’s left of her town.

We wished Laura and her family well and Maria then took us up a rough road into the holler. We were going to visit one of three ancient cemeteries that were under threat from mining.

(CGZ blog post http://climategroundzero.org/2009/08/protecting-the-cook-family-cemeteries/)

The company builds fences and erects gates, using public safety as the justification for keeping people out of what had once been their common ground. In fact, for people to now visit any of these burial grounds, if they want to go lay some flowers on their grandparents’ grave or visit an ancestor’s final resting place, they must first undertake a safety training course (on their own dime), engage a company security guard to escort them (on their own dime), and wear hard hats and steel-toed boots which they must provide for themselves.

The cemetery we were heading for today was not available for visitation anymore and its future was in serious doubt. By law the company must provide a 100-ft buffer around such areas, but when Maria and others marked that off they found that their makers had been moved further inwards.

We made it up some treacherous road only to find that the company had moved the line once again, and before we could get to the site we had to turn around or risk arrest and the impoundment of Maria’s jeep. Something she said was assured and not something she could afford. So we turned around.

She took us through what was left of Lindytown – rows of empty houses, many of which had been looted and vandalized. Maria asserts that the coal company, Massey, that purchased the properties, opened up the materials to employees if “there was anything they would find useful.

Lindytown home that was vandalized

She showed us where less than a year ago children played and families made their home. She showed us where a woman died of a heart attack on the very day she was set to move from her home – her only home, where she had been born. She showed us the failed union hall – a sad statement in an industry-controlled area where unions have no presence, where workers get paid low wages and receive no benefits.

Used to be an underground coal mine would support up to 500 miners – which was good for the community, good for families, and better for the mountains. Non-union MTR employs as few as 19 miners per operation, and once the mountain has been dropped 800 or so feet, the operation closes up and moves on to the next site.

Maria then took us back to her house, passing a “We Support Coal” sign on the local grocery – a business she says serves many more miners than it does locals. Most locals aren’t coal supporters – most locals don’t work the mines. Most locals are suffering from poverty, poisoned water, and constant blasting and would be happy to see King Coal unseated. Maria has many friends locally.

Bob White Grocery - "We Support Coal"

Sometimes she gets chased by mine company employees trying to keep her from making her rounds of visiting sites and people affected by coal mining, and working to protect what’s under threat. She’s had to stop in at friends to switch cars so many times to throw off pursuit she can’t count how many its been. So far she’s been lucky – but she’s afraid of what would happen if she got caught out where there were no witnesses, where she was alone. But she doesn’t dwell on it.

Maria is a bright spirit who has a smile for everyone she meets. She’s gregarious and friendly and she tends to elicit smiles even from the coal miners she comes across at the gas station or convenience stores. Once at the grocery store a Massey employee, dressed in his work uniform, called out above the shoppers to affirm, “I work for Massey and I support Maria Gunnoe 110%!”

These are the kinds of things that show her that this battle can be won. Appalachia can support all sorts of economies, all kinds of industry, from tourism to herbalism to alternative energy. But it’s not going to happen until our government stops issuing the permits that allow the destruction to continue. It’s not going to happen until the Appalachian Restoration Act is made into law.

And it’s not going to happen while Don Blankenship and his ilk continue to hold sway in matters of politics and law enforcement in West Virginia.

But the day is coming when the blasting will stop and the mountains will be peaceful again. That day must come – and soon. The mountains can survive only so long while this assault continues with the support of State and Federal government.

You can find out more about Maria from this Google search, or by visiting the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition site.

Larry Gibson

Larry was preparing for a big Labor Day party, and he was fairly certain there would be violence. He had hung a “Coal keeps West Virginia poor” sign on the patio, right next to his “Friends of the Mountains” sign, and when we arrived he noticed it had been torn down. He was clearly shaken because he hadn’t noticed that anyone had entered his property. While we were there, he put in calls to try to arrange security for the upcoming event, but he didn’t sound hopeful that the police would be of any help. In fact, he has had no call backs for his request for state law enforcement support. Since the incident on the 4th the State Troopers came once to see what the fuss was about, didn’t take a statement and did not give Larry their names when he asked.

Because of his activism, Larry has experienced 136 acts of violence. His property and neighbors’ property has been shot up (we saw bullet holes), and his dog was hung on his porch and almost killed.

In June, Larry was arrested along with Daryl Hannah, climatologist Jim Hansen, RAN Executive Director Michael Brune and dozens of Coal River Valley residents in a protest to stop mountaintop removal. Larry plead not guilty and he’s looking forward to making his case before a jury and the public. He holds the state and law enforcement in contempt and wants to tell the world.

When I made a blog post earlier in my trip, somebody kindly suggested that I take a hike (I believe he recommended Afghanistan). Since I was in Appalachia, I went for brief hike with Larry and my friends. He took us up the hill past some his cousins’ homes to a mountaintop removal site. He told us about how he felt the blasts when they blew up the mountain (it’s more than 400 feet shorter than it used to be). And he told us that the 310 year old cemetery where his family is buried slid over a high wall, and he can’t get there anymore. At the time, he was negotiating with the company to try to save it. It was against the law to destroy it, “but who cares?”

MTR site near Larry's property

While below-ground mines used to employ more than 500 workers, the massive mine behind Larry’s property employs all of 19 people. And since Massey isn’t a union company, the miners make about $12/hour (union workers typically make twice that). Hardly the stuff you’d want to base an entire economy on. Larry also disputes claims that MTR is so much safer than underground mining. This year, they’ve already lost nine people in mining accidents, and six were from surface mining.

The biggest industries in West Virginia are mining, Walmart and tourism, in that order. Larry says that the Governor simply won’t pursue other industries because the coal company wants to keep wages down and have its pick of the workers.

Larry fully expects to lose his life in this battle, but he won’t stop. He says it’s not about being brave, it’s about being right. His message to the rest of us: If it can happen here with coal, it can happen anywhere else in this country where there’s something of value that somebody can make money from. It’s our fight too. We need to take a stand.