Last week, Eric Blevins came down from a nine day tree-sit on Coal River Mountain. He then spent a couple of days in jail. While in jail, he wrote this letter to the Register-Herald in Beckley, WV and then dictated it over the phone to a support person at Climate Ground Zero.

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. More »

It’s getting serious. They are bringing out their big guns. King Coal is getting ready to throw their kitchen sink at the pesky anti-mountaintop removal movement.

The coal industry’s top lobbyist, WV Gov. Joe Manchin, is scheduled to meet President Obama and Vice-President Biden with ten other governors on the issue of energy.

Manchin has been a major obstacle in ending mountaintop removal (MTR) in West Virginia and rails publicly against Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency taking stronger action to regulate and ban the practice.

Geez, I wonder what sort of energy he’ll be advocating for?

Manchin’s fortunes are tied directly to King Coal. He has stated publicly that West Virginia is an extraction state. Just this week, he remarked “just cutting out coal is not feasible, it’s not going to happen.” More »

The nine day Coal River Mountain tree-sit that ended on Friday has entered a new phase. Mining giant Massey Energy has filed for a temporary restraining order (TRO) in federal court and sued five activists that were part of the action for $75,000 in damages. Ken Ward from the WV Gazette posted the order by Judge Irene Berger.

For the past year, Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice activists have utilized direct action tactics on Massey and other mining company property to stop the destruction of Appalachia’s mountains. Massey has frequently responded to actions in court seeking financial damages and with restraining orders. More »

Martin Mudd is an anti-strip mining activist who manages a Facebook group asking that JP Morgan Chase stop financing mountaintop removal. Members of Martin’s group closed their accounts with Chase today in protest of the company’s continued financing of MTR. Last week, JP Morgan Chase executive, Jim Fuschetti, sent a letter to Martin Mudd, and Martin shared it with RAN. I’ve posted Mr. Fuschetti’s letter in its entirety, and added my responses (in bold) along the way. Mr. Fuschetti – I hope this helps to clear up confusion between JP Morgan Chase and RAN.

-Annie More »

After enduring over a week of ice and rain, mind-numbing noise abuse and harassment by Massey security, Eric and Amber came down today. The Climate Ground Zero tree sitters vowed that the fight to save Coal River Mountain and stop mountaintop removal is far from over.

More »

After almost a week of preventing blasting on Coal River Mountain, tree-sitters with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice still continue to prevent Massey’s blasting near the Bee Tree site. Massey security blasts air horns 24 hours a day, and bright lights at night, with hopes of forcing the sitters down. Despite the audio and psychological abuse, Eric Blevins and Amber Nitchman refuse to descend. Two men have been arrested in separate attempts at a re-supply (which included ear protection). Furthermore, Massey security operatives have been overheard on two-way radios threatening to blast the tree-sitters with high pressure fire hoses, which would almost certainly be lethal to Eric and Amber. More »

The fight over Coal River Mountain is escalating. Miners are using loud air horn like noises and bright lights to keep the tree-sitters up at all hours in hopes of bring them down. To counter this tactics, the tree-sitters have called the state police (which shut the noise down for a while) and now Climate Ground Zero has initiated a call in day on Massey’s HQ in Richmond Virginia. So far, hundreds have called in demanding the Massey stop their abuses.

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. More »

The three tree sitters positioned near Massey’s Bee Tree Strip Mine on Coal River Mountain weathered their first night with Massey’s attempts to break them with bright lights and loud noises (those ear plugs come in pretty handy) and cold January weather with no problems at all. Sitting in barren oak trees and a poplar, Eric Blevins, 28, Amber Nitchman, 19, and David Aaron Smith, 23 have all stated that they intend to stay until the blasting ends.

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.” More »

UPDATE:Ground support held on $1500 bail. They are charged w/ conspiracy & trespass Donate to legal @ http://bit.ly/6tjVsS

It’s ON! This is how 2010 begins in the Coal River Valley, with a non-violent bang not a whimper.

After almost a year of sustained direct actions in southern West Virginia, three Climate Ground Zero activists scaled trees to stop blasting on Coal River Mountain. David Aaron Smith, 23, Amber Nitchman, 19 and Eric Blevins, 28 are on platforms approximately 60 feet up three tulip poplar trees. They are located next to where Massey Energy is blasting to build an access road to the Brushy Fork Impoundment on its Bee Tree Strip Mine. Their banners read: “EPA Stop the Blasting,” and “Windmills Not Toxic Spills.”

In the past two weeks, mountaintop removal coal mining has thrust itself into the national consciousness with an article in the prestigious science journal Science calling for a ban on mountaintop removal, a feature on the popular comedy show The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert and tonight’s debate between Massey CEO Don Blankenship and environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the University of Charleston. Never before has MTR received such scrutiny.

Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved a MTR permit in West Virginia signaling the weakening of their position on the issue. EPA inaction for decades has left over 500 mountains in Appalachia barren moonscape, poisoned numerous communities and profiting mining execs throughout the region. Obama’s EPA had promised to act on MTR, but has yet to take any significant steps to outlaw the practice. Likewise, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson had failed to even visit the region or do a flyover of affected areas.
The tree sitters are committed to staying until the blasting ends on Coal River Mountain.

Currently, a winter action camp is underway at Climate Ground Zero in Rock Creek, WV and more actions are expected throughout 2010. It’s going to be a kick ass year. More »

This Thursday evening, deep in the heart of West Virginia, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be going head-to-head with the fourth largest coal producer in the US- CEO of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship. These two opposing forces will square off on the controversial topic of mountaintop removal coal mining at the Forum on the Future of Energy at the University of Charleston. Co-hosted by Waterkeeper Alliance and Rainforest Action Network (RAN), this unique debate pits a lifelong environmentalist and president of Waterkeeper Alliance against King Coal himself.

The debate will be broadcast locally in Charleston, livestreamed by Waterkeeper Alliance, and Tweetcast by Director of RAN’s Global Finance Campaign, Ms. Amanda Starbuck. Edwin Welch, President of University of Charleston, will be moderating. Not holding one of the coveted tickets to the event? Attend the debate virtually:

1. Submit your questions to the University of Charleston
2. Follow @RAN and @Waterkeeper on Twitter
3. Become Facebook fans of Rainforest Action Network or The Dirty Lie
3. Tune into the livestream on Justin.tv at 6:15pm EST, Thursday, Jan. 21

If you care about conservation, West Virginia, coal, energy policy, or just seeing a really good fight- be there!

RFK, Jr. On Mountaintop Removal

Don Blankenship On Global Warming