Yesterday, we met with Judy Bonds from Coal River Mountain Watch who won the Goldman Prize for Excellence in Protecting the Environment in 2003. During our visit at the Coal River Mountain Watch office, the phone rang constantly and people kept coming in to ask Judy questions. She’d already done two interviews that day and said she was a little brain dead, but it was clear she was used to telling her story and had it ready anytime someone was willing to listen.

Judy told us about how she was the eighth generation of her family to live in Appalachia. She told us about how Appalachians have a tradition called “tending the commons,” which meant taking care of the hills and the hollers for the common good. It was a traditional practice for people to help spread ginseng seeds (and other medicinal herbs) so that the “’seng” would propagate on down the mountain. Someone had a question about this on my last blog post, and yes, according to Judy there were absentee landholders who did hold legal rights to these lands and ultimately sold them to the coal companies. When the coal companies put up fences everywhere, this practice (and the abundance of ginseng) was brought to a halt.

West Virginia still grows half of all of the ginseng currently sold in the world, but the incredibly lucrative plant isn’t nearly as prevalent as it used it be. Appalachia is also home to many other medicinal herbs, including black cohosh and goldenseal. There’s a real treasure trove of herbs that grow at higher altitudes on the mountains that are being destroyed. In addition, Appalachia has more than 150 different types of trees – it’s the seed source for many varieties of trees in North America.

Judy told us she was working as a waitress when they first started blowing the mountains up. She told us about Appalachians’ connection to the landscape and told us that walking through the holler makes you feel like you’re being hugged by the mountain. She described walking through the holler with daughter, while her grandson played in a nearby stream. Suddenly, her grandson called out “What’s wrong with these fish?” and held up a dead fish in each hand. Judy immediately started yelling “get out of the water!”

That’s when it clicked for her that, if the fish were being poisoned, the land and the people must also be experiencing some serious side effects. Since then, she’s been speaking out against the destruction of the Appalachian landscape and culture.

It hasn’t been easy for her. Since she started this work, her life has been threatened and she’s been run off the road so many times that she won’t drive with her kids in the car. Despite the incredibly stress and constant threats to her property, her family and her life, Judy isn’t going to quit. She’s fighting for everybody’s life and health, and for the culture they share.

I was also very moved when Judy told us how much she appreciated RAN’s work to stop mountaintop removal. She said that the corporate campaigning to cut off the financing, our support for local actions and our efforts to raise the profile of the issue beyond Appalachia were all helping. I was very glad to hear that, but I left feeling such a deep sense of awe and appreciation at everything this woman and Coal River Mountain Watch are doing to protect their homes, their communities and their culture.

The t-shirt I got at Coal River Mountain Watch sums it up so well: “Save the Endangered Hillbilly: Stop Mountaintop Removal.

This morning, we were lucky enough to go on a flyover of mountaintop removal (MTR) sites. The good folks at Southwings Aviation offer these trips as a way to help publicize to the outside world what’s really happening in Appalachia, and our pilot/tour guide Tom was a fountain of knowledge about the issue. Branden got the front seat, because the front window opens and he’s the guy with the good camera. Me and Sue sat in back and took lesser pictures with our lesser cameras through the window.

The first thing that you notice: It is truly beautiful here. Appalachia is green and lush and mountainous and it seems like it goes on forever. And then… it doesn’t. What we couldn’t see from the roadway was apparent from the air. Mountaintop removal coal mining is tearing a hole in the heart of this beautiful forest. In fact, it’s tearing lots of holes. Everywhere we looked, we saw another ugly sore on the landscape – coal mining operations or areas that have been blasted out that aren’t even being mined yet.

While we were flying, one phrase kept going through my mind. “Tikkun Olam” – it’s Hebrew for “to heal (or repair) the world” and it means that we all have an obligation to help restore the world and its inhabitants to a state of wholeness. It’s a concept that often gives meaning to my activism, but nowhere have I felt it more profoundly than here in Appalachia. We were given a region so beautiful that (we learned today) its name comes from a Native American word for “endless mountain forest.” And what do we do? We blast the tops right off of those mountains, trash the trees, and poison the rivers! We’ve got a lot of healing work to do here.

In the afternoon, we had a wonderful visit with Judy Bonds from Coal River Mountain Watch . She told us how she was the eighth generation of her family to live in Appalachia and about how Appalachians have always been connected to the landscape and cared for the commons – until the coal companies came in and laid claim to all of the commons. She had so many important things to say and stories to tell, and if Branden doesn’t write about it, I’ll tell you some of it tomorrow. Now it’s after midnight and we’re meeting with Goldman Prize-winner Maria Gunnoe in the morning, so I’d better call it a day.

Oh, by the way, we stopped by Climate Ground Zero and heard that the tree-sitters’ bail was reduced from $25,000 each to $1000, and the two of them were on their way over to the Climate Ground Zero house this evening after spending a night enjoying the relative peace and quiet of their jail cell.

So I made it to Appalachia, but as you probably saw, the tree-sit was already over. We spent the evening hanging out with a bunch of activists and community members, hearing stories about their exploits over the past few days. It was a truly impressive operation!

While two tree-sitters sat in jail waiting for bail to be set (ultimately reported at $25,000 each (!) for misdemeanor charges). We heard about how Massey workers set up a 24-hour vigil to harass, threaten and even torture the two. Workers reportedly set off various types of extremely loud noises at irregular intervals to make it impossible for the tree sitters to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. We were told that they cut down nearby trees and took a chainsaw to the trees that the sitters were in (stopping short of cutting them down while the sitters were still there).

The more I saw and heard, the more I experienced déjà vu. This trip to Appalachia has so many similarities to my fact finding trip last year to visit to Indigenous communities impacted by palm oil plantations in Malaysia. How so?
• Both are (or were) beautiful forested areas with flowing rivers and thriving local cultures.
• Both are being exploited for the benefit of corporations that promise a good living to community members, but don’t deliver.
• Rivers are being polluted and community members are left with toxic fish to eat.
• Bottled water is the only safe choice.
• Both are company towns (or states), where local government bends over backwards to contort the law to favor the industry over the people, where local police offer no protection, and where local media won’t say a word against the company.
• Both are home to determined people standing up against all odds to save their communities and their heritage.
• People in both areas face trumped up charges, excessive bail and other systematic controls designed to scare off others from speaking out.
• Above all, both of them need our help!

If you can make it to Appalachia to support the struggle, go! If you can’t, help expose what’s going on by writing about, telling your friends, doing a classroom presentation, etc. And tell the EPA that it’s time to stop this horrible practice once and for all!

It’s comforting to think that what’s happening in Malaysia couldn’t happen in a “mature democracy” like the USA. Think again.

As organizing director at RAN, I’ve worked to support our campaign to break our addiction to fossil fuels, stop financing for the coal industry and put an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. Now I’m going to see it first-hand.

I’ve read a lot about how devastating mountaintop removal mining is for communities in Appalachia. I’ve seen pictures of sites that were once beautiful mountains and are now hideous, open sores on the landscape. I’ve cheered on efforts to save Coal River Mountain and turn it into a wind farm that would produce renewable energy instead of just a one-time carb fix. I’ve even seen a jar of the disgustingly murky water that runs from the faucet in coal-country (didn’t you think the U.S. had national standards for drinking water?). And I’ve heard stories first-hand from community members who are fighting to save their homes and their heritage, most recently in an inspiring and infuriating panel at Netroots Nation where the speakers strongly encouraged bloggers and others to come out and see what’s happening for themselves.

When I heard their invitation, I already had my ticket. When I read the call-out for people to come to Appalachia to support the tree-sitters who have temporarily stopped blasting at a Massey site, I was boarding a train to the airport. I don’t know at this point where the tree-sit will fit in with our plans (I hear that they’re arresting anyone who tries to get near them.). I’m certainly hoping that the tree-sitters will still be safely in place and that I’ll have a chance to show some support. I’ll find out when I get there.

I’m not sure when – or if- I’ll have internet access during the visit, but I’ll keep on typing and post what I can when I can. Stay tuned!

(PS – my flight out of SFO was delayed, and I missed my connection and wound up spending the night in Chicago, so I won’t be meeting up with my traveling companions until later this afternoon.)

I’ve been a fan of Chris Jordan’s photographs for quite some time. No other work that I’ve seen captures the sheer magnitude of our culture’s dark side in a way that is extremely powerful, very personal and unmistakably quantifiable. Chris has taken on some provocative topics over the years, showing us how one hundred million toothpicks equate to the number of trees cut in the U.S. to make junk mail every year to a layout of 65,000 cigarettes equaling the number of teenagers in the U.S. who become addicted to cigarettes every month.

Inspired by the tragedy of mountaintop removal in Appalachia, Chris’ latest work shows us in a very provocative way just how much coal we consume each day.

Check it out on Grist.

(Posted by Branden for Daryl who joined RAN’s Michael Brune and others to protest MTR in West Virginia last week.)

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.

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. More »

Mountaintop removal and Massey Energy drawing much heat these days. A Massey board member resigned last week over it. The president of Ohio State University no less.

OSU president resigns from Massey under pressure

By JULIE CARR SMYTH – 3 days ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee will step down from the board of coal mining giant Massey Energy under pressure from environmental groups.

In a statement Friday, Richmond, Va.-based Massey said Gee will leave the board on July 1 after nine years. Gee, 65, was re-elected to his post at the company’s shareholder’s meeting May 19.

Pressure from activist groups had intensified ahead of that meeting. Critics said Gee’s presence on the board was a show of support for some practices that have come under fire, such as mountaintop mining.

Gee has been an influential voice in the national push for green energy jobs and has said he could do more good on the board at Massey than he could from outside the company. More »

I joined a group of activists from New York PIRG and Rainforest Action Network today outside the JPMorgan Chase annual shareholder meeting. We were at the base of the skyscraper in Manhattan’s financial district, handing out flyers outlining JPMC’s many ties to the coal industry (MTR, new coal fired power plants) to shareholders as they headed into the building for the meeting.

It was not until the 12th or 20th time that I explained to a sharholder that JPMC was investing in dirty energy that I realized that there were several very determined men standing not far from us, on JPMC’s gorgeous property, scrubbing city soot from the steps and handrails. What irony! As JPMC finances coal, which releases toxic material into the air and cooks the climate, they are hiring people to clean up the outside of their building.

Hopefully, as we talk to JPMC more about their financing of new coal fired power plants, such as AMP-Ohio, and mountaintop removal coal mining companies such as Massey Energy, they will start to understand that stopping dirty energy is just as important as stopping dirty sidewalks.

-Annie

UPDATE: Ron Arnold of Center for the Defense of Free Interprise and the Wise Use movement has come out with a statement in support of Roselle:

“02/11/09 Mike Roselle – I don’t agree with him, but he’s no terrorist.
CDFE executive vice president Ron Arnold angrily condemned a WCHS-TV8 report suggesting Roselle is an “eco-terrorist.” Arnold said, “I’ve covered Roselle since 1995 and even devoted dozens of pages to his protest activities in my 1997 book EcoTerror: The Violent Agenda to Save Nature. I covered his actions to distinguish between radicals and terrorists. I say he’s a radical environmentalist, not an eco-terrorist. It’s not a crime to be a radical and Roselle has never been charged with any violent crime.
Now he’s protesting coal mining in West Virginia. I support the mining. We need the energy. I think Roselle is dead wrong on this issue. But he doesn’t like the so-called “mountain-top removal” mining method, so he protested it and got arrested on minor charges. He’s told me he’s willing to face a jury on his protest. Face it: what he did was civil disobedience, not terrorism. But his opponents are dredging up eco-terror accusations. That’s just hot air and it’s wrong. Don’t dilute the absolutely monstrous crime of pipe-bombs and arson and murder committed to save nature by using a powerful and legal term like “eco-terrorism” for a guy you don’t agree with protesting how you do things. I don’t like his protests, either, but I insist on keeping the honorable term “eco-terrorism” where it belongs – reserved for real terrorists. Roselle may be a terrible pain in the ass, but he’s no terrorist. And don’t say I’m a shill for Massey Energy – they’ve never given CDFE a dime. Or even to our allies like the Congress of Racial Equality, which is probably America’s leading champion of abundant, affordable energy from our own American soil.”

Ron Arnold
Center for the Defense of Free Interprise

Is Fox replacing O’Reilly with Roselle? If only….

I often think about where the next backlash against the No Coal Movement is going to manifest next. Sometimes it’s the pro-coal front groups following coal activists on Twitter and spamming our blogs. Sometimes it’s disgusting “clean coal” ads running on TV. It’s manifested in a pretty ugly way in West Virginia as community activists like Maria Gunnoe have faced threats of property destruction and physical harm.

West Virginia’s local media seems to be on board with the pro-coal agenda as they engage in character assassination of prominent activists joining the fight.

Environmentalist Mike Roselle, founder of Earth First!, The Ruckus Society and Rainforest Action Network, has moved to the Coal River Valley of West Virginia to non-violently confront the coal barons plotting to destroy Appalachia’s mountains (case in point, Coal River Mountain). Last week, Roselle joined with 13 others, in the tradition of King and Gandhi, in putting their bodies on the line to stop mountaintop removal on Coal River Mountain.

Now a WV Fox news station has decided that Roselle is an “eco-terrorist” that uses “radical methods of protest may put lives at stake in West Virginia.”

RIDICULOUS.

It’s really interesting the way in which governments and corporations decide who is a terrorist and who isn’t. Roselle has been a long time proponent of non-violent direct action in advocating for saving the planet. Some even consider him a decent god-fearing person.

Fox News (albeit locally) is acting as the propaganda arm of the coal industry and attacking non-violent activists for taking a stand. Their is a long list of violent tactics using firearms and vehicles against local WV activists that actually put lives at stake and rarely do we hear about that on Fox’s airwaves.

It would be nice to get a little truth out of the Fox News’ of the world for a change, although at this point I’d settle for a regular segment called the “No Coal Zone” featuring Mike Roselle for a little fair and balanced reporting.

Last week, Bank of America released a new coal policy on their website announcing that they would “phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal.” We were thrilled. We celebrated. We sent out a press release praising Bank of America for their decision to move away from financing mountaintop removal coal mining, and pressuring them to go a step further and pull out of coal financing altogether.

Bank of America’s announcement, and the responses of RAN and many of our allies picked up a fair amount of press coverage. We were pleased that the press coverage focused on Bank of America’s culpability in the practice of mountaintop removal. We were especially pleased to know that reporters were calling Bank of America representatives to ask hard questions about their vague policy, such as what is BoA’s time-line for phasing out mountaintop removal? And what companies in BoA’s portfolio will this policy affect?

This article appeared in the Charleston Gazzette: http://sundaygazettemail.com/News/200812040774

Another good article, this one from GreenBiz:
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2008/12/05/bofa-curbs-coal-financing-with-new-policy

And then there was the article that got picked up by the AP: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/a3e3c96be1da660d911b45f0f7a447f5.htm This article was very critical of Bank of America’s policy and asked whether it is all for show.

We at RAN are asking ourselves that same question. While it is great that Bank of America has acknowledged their responsibility on the issues of mountaintop removal mining, we wonder which companies in their profile they consider to “predominately” use mountaintop removal as a method of mining coal. Do they mean companies who mine more than 50% of their coal with mountaintop removal? The AP reporter who wrote the above article assumed that 50% + 1 equals predominate, but unfortunately, we have not yet been able to clarify with Bank of America this very important question.

We are working on updating all of the research that we keep regarding Bank of America (and other banks) financial relationships within the coal industry, and we are taking a look at the top companies that are involved in mountaintop removal mining and crunching numbers to figure out how much of their coal is mined by mountaintop removal so that we can quickly and accurately respond as Bank of America’s policy becomes more clear. We will be sure to keep the blog updated as details emerge from Bank of America – so stay tuned!

-Annie