Across Country Coalition of Environmental Groups Call for EPA to Stop Recent Blasting on Coal River Mountain, WV; Site of Proposed Wind Farm

More than Fifty Stage Sit-In and Rally at EPA Headquarters in DC

What you can do right now: Call EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and ask her to stop the blasting at Coal River Mountain

Hundreds participated today with Mountain Justice, Rainforest Action Network and other environmental groups in nationwide protests demanding an end to mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia. As part of the national day of, 14 people staged a sit-in at the EPA headquarters in Washington, DC. They were joined by approximately 50 coalfield residents and allies who held a rally in front of the building.

Those in attendance represent a coalition of environmental groups and Appalachian community members who are asking the EPA to take immediate action to stop mountaintop removal coal mining. In particular, the group is asking the EPA to intervene in the destruction of Coal River Mountain, WV, the site of a potential 328-megawatt wind farm, which Massey Energy began blasting this week.

While President Obama spent the week trumpeting his administration’s support for clean energy, Massey Energy began dynamiting Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, a national flashpoint in the battle to replace destructive mountaintop removal coal mining practices with clean energy and green jobs.

“The fate of Coal River Mountain and our clean energy future is in the EPA’s hands,” said Kate Rooth of the Rainforest Action Network who took part in the sit-in. “By intervening to stop the blasting of Coal River Mountain and to protect our nation’s clean energy resources, the Obama Administration has a chance to show that it will stand up for the nation’s new energy priorities and green jobs even against persistent dirty coal interests; this is how we protect the economy and the planet.”

Coal River Mountain gained national notoriety after a study showed that its peaks and ridges have enough wind potential to provide 70,000 households with electricity, support 700 long-term green jobs and give back $1.7 million in annual county taxes. Over the objections of the local community, the site has been granted permits for mountaintop removal. Massey Energy began dynamiting peaks this week, which will destroy any hope for the proposed wind farm unless the EPA intervenes.

“Every day, more than 3 million pounds of explosives are detonated in our state to remove our mountains and expose the thin seams of coal beneath,” said Bo Webb, a resident of Coal River Valley WV and a participant in today’s rally. “President Obama, I beg you to re-light our flame of hope and honor and immediately stop the coal companies from blasting so near our homes and endangering our lives. As you have said, we must find another way than blowing off the tops of our mountains. We must end mountaintop removal.”

If the blasting at Coal River Mountain is allowed to continue, mountaintop removal coal mining will destroy one of the last intact mountains in Appalachia. In the process, it will endanger hundreds of people living in the valley below, as the project requires blasting dynamite less than 100 yards from the largest coal sludge impoundment in the country. Massey Energy’s own assessment indicates that if the impoundment, an earthen dam, is breached more than eight billion gallons of coal slurry will spill out endangering hundreds of people who would have less than five minutes to evacuate.

Early Thursday morning, local climate activists dropped a banner reading “Save Coal River Mtn.” from the 18th Street overpass above the Vine Street Expressway. The banner contrasted images of a wind farm and a bulldozer; the bottom read, “Coal Is Over.”

Massey Energy Company, one of the largest coal producers in the country, began blasting at Coal River Mountain last Friday, in Coal River, West Virginia. Last year the state issued permits to conduct mountain top removal on the site, despite protest by local residents. Witnesses saw blasts and smoke on Friday near the Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment.

Slurry is the by-product of coal washing and processing and contains high levels of toxic heavy metals. The Brushy Fork impoundment, the largest slurry dam in Appalachia, has the capacity to hold 8.2 billion gallons. 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. More »

This morning RAN, the New York Action Network, the Waterkeeper Alliance and the Sierra Club organized a “Carnival of Destruction” outside JPMorgan Chase’s mid-town Manhattan headquarters. Scores of protesters gathered to demand that the bank stop financing the coal industry, including the devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. Just last week JPMorgan Chase – financed company, Massey Energy began blasting on Coal River Mountain, an action that makes this morning’s protest even more urgent.

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!

I recently went on a trip with two awesome people from Rainforest Action Network, Branden Barber and Debra Erenberg, to visit Appalachia country in West Virginia.  The purpose of the trip was to see first hand what’s happening with mountaintop removal (MTR) due to the affects of coal strip mining.  Its one thing to read about and see pictures of MTR, but it’s absolutely another thing to actually see it and to hear the stories from the people who live there.  What I saw and learned left me feeling sad, angry, overwhelmed and deeply affected.

We had the great fortune of meeting with four equally impressive people in the area.  Each works with a different non-profit group that is fighting to stop this insane large scale devastation.  Mike Roselle from Climate Ground Zero talked about the campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience work that this new and emerging organization is doing where local and non-local volunteers are putting themselves at great risk for trying to stop MTR.  Mike is great.  He is truly a leader in the national and international environmental movement.  I know I want him on my side to stand up for a worthy cause.  It’s tough work, but thanks to Mike and the people at Climate Ground Zero, they’re bringing national attention to this horrid practice of MTR. More »

Wednesday, September 30^th, the Environmental Protection Agency released a list of 79 pending mountaintop removal permits that  will be held for further review. While the decision signals a strong first step, there are still many more pending permits, not to mention all of the active mining occurring throughout Appalachia, that was not impacted by this decision. To read more about this decision, read my earlier post.

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.”

More »

Hey everyone- Kate here, your resident Washington DC Coal campaigner dedicated to taking some of the wonk of our DC Beltway politics and get under the skin of decision makers until they realize just how serious we are about the issue of Mountaintop Removal.

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.

I first met Maria Gunnoe a couple of years ago when we had the great fortune to honor her at REVEL with a World Rainforest Award for her courageous and critical work in West Virginia’s Appalachian mountains. I was impressed by her courage and her spirit – and just how engaging and approachable she is.

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. More »

Finding your way to Climate Ground Zero is easy if you know where you’re going.  Well, even then I’ve learned that Google will lead me astray from time to time. But in terms of what CGZ is, well, I thought I knew.

I didn’t have a clue.

Well, maybe that’s unfair.

I knew what was going on in the mountains of Appalachia, I knew that people were fighting a powerful company that is extracting coal and destroying mountains and communities, and I knew that Climate Ground Zero refers to where the main battle for our global climate is going on – here in the heart of Coal Country, in the US where we produce the lion’s share, per capita, of the world’s greenhouse gases and half of that comes from coal. I knew that this battle is seriously heating up. But I didn’t know how serious.

Of course it’s serious that a company is mining coal with machines bigger than office buildings and tremendous amounts of explosives, carried daily in tankers that rip along these narrow two lane highways.

And of course it’s serious when people’s families are endangered, their homes destroyed by floods caused by the mining, and the mountains that sustain so much life, so much diversity, are being wiped out for corporate profit. In this area that is stunningly beautiful, terrible things are indeed happening.

Since 1991 Massey Energy has led the pack in the race to take all the coal available from the once-hallowed mountains of Appalachia. They have systematically led the charge and taken the lion’s share of profit in the most efficient form of coal mining available, Mountaintop Removal.

The EPA continues to grant the permits that allow this company to employ far fewer workers than ever before in the history of coal mining. An underground mine used to employ as many as 500 workers. Now these operations can employ as few as 19. More »

After a long and bumpy ride, we arrived at Larry Gibson’s property. Larry hosts an annual 4th of July party, and this year Massey workers showed up drunk and threatening violence. Larry knew they were coming, and knew they had started drinking at 9 a.m. to build up the nerve to finally show up around 7 pm. The only reason there wasn’t violence was because there were several people with video cameras filming them. After the incident, Larry made repeated calls to the State and Federal government, and many calls to local law enforcement, West Virginia’s State Troopers. The FBI finally showed up 5 weeks after the event took place. They told him that no federal laws were broken, despite video footage of a man threatening to kill and woman and her two kids. According to the FBI, they “have the right to express themselves.”

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.

More »

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.