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It's only a few short days before we need you to stand with us to save Coal River Mountain. Please come and join hundreds of Coal River Valley residents and their allies, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the Waterkeeper Alliance.
Join us on Dec. 7 at 2:00 p.m. at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) headquarters in Charleston, WV.
We need your help to save Coal River Mountain and protect the people of Coal River Valley, a critical step in ending mountaintop removal coal mining and putting the country on a path to a clean energy future.
Two weeks ago, four courageous activists from Climate Ground Zero locked themselves to a drilling rig on Coal River Mountain to stop the blasting. Now, hundreds of concerned citizens are set to rally at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on Monday, December 7th to call for the end to the mountaintop removal coal mining on Coal River Mountain. The site of a proposed wind farm and approximately 200 feet from the largest coal sludge dam in the country, Coal River Mountain is becoming a line in the sand for residents, environmentalists and prominent figures, like Robert Kennedy, Jr., who are demanding an end to the destructive mining practice.
Judge Chuck Chambers has ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not give the public enough of a say on two MTR permits.
Sierra Club spokesman Oliver Bernstein says the decision issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Chuck Chambers affects most pending surface mine permits in West Virginia, the nation's No. 2 coal producer.
- According to the latest from Climate Ground Zero, Nick Martin is out of jail.
Dea, Grace, and Laura are still in jail with bail set at $2000 cash only each. We need help raising money to pay their bail, any donations are appreciated!
The three remaining citizens who halted blasting on Coal River Mountain Saturday were released from jail early today. Laura Von Dohlen, Grace Williams, and Dea Goblirsch were released with a $2,000 bail and charges of trespassing, littering and conspiracy. Nick Martin was released Saturday night. This, the 18th action by Climate Ground Zero volunteers, held ground longer than any beside the treesit, in August . An entire day of blasting on Coal River Mountain was stopped by the actions of the four.
Responding to Harmful Government Inaction, Protestors Stop Blasting on Coal River Mountain
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 11/21/09
Contact: Zoe Beavers
Email: news@climategroundzero.org
PETTUS, W. Va. - Early this morning two concerned citizens, Dea Goblirsch and Nick Martin, locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain's Bee Tree mountaintop removal site, effectively stopping blasting. Two others, Grace Williams and Laura Von Dolen, joined them in direct support, holding a banner with the message "Save Coal River Mountain".
These nonviolent protestors have taken this action to bring attention to the extreme danger facing residents of the Coal RiverValley from blasting near the Brushy Fork Impoundment. They plan to stay locked down until law enforcement removes them.
Resident of Rock Creek, W Va., Delbert Gunnoe, stated his concerns with the blasting, "You know when they put a blast over there, and it shakes the windows over here, at what, ¾-a-mile distance, imagine what it does over there." Gunnoe continued, "if [the impoundment] did bust...what would be the destruction? The town of Whitesville would no longer exist."
The four are fearful of the blasting that Massey Energy began in late October. These blasts are 200 feet from the Brushy Fork Impoundment, permitted to hold nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. The impoundment sits atop miles of hollow, abounded underground mines, further endangering its integrity. By Massey's own estimates, roughly 998 people will die should the dam break. The emergency evacuation plan states that a 40-foot wall of sludge, cresting at 72 feet, will flow through the valley, reaching 20-feet-high about 15 miles down the road. Apart from the initial flood, the impact of this potential spill would be felt along the Coal River's 88 miles.
"The Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment keeps residents of the Coal River Valley up at night, waiting for eight billion gallons of toxic coal slurry to come rushing towards them," said Dea Goblirsch, one of the two locked down. "I don't know how Massey executives sleep soundly at night."
Hydrologist, Dr. Rick Eades spoke of concerns about the stability of the dam as blasting occurs. He questioned "blasting where underground mines existed in the Eagle coal seam, the possibilities for adversely affecting near-surface bedrock in a way that could possibly enhance pathways for slurry to be released via the subsurface and bypass the dam."
The concern is that slurry will break into underground mine shafts and blow out through old mine openings on the side of the mountain. This potentiality for Coal River Mountain mirrors the cause of the world's largest slurry spill which occurred in Martin County, Ky. In 2000, 250 million gallons of slurry broke forth from a 2.2-billion-gallon impoundment, killing nearly all life in the Big Sandy River. Its impact reached all the way to the Ohio River, about 100 miles away.
Earlier this week, EPA sent out a letter to Marfork Coal Co., a subsidiary of Massey Energy Co., airing concerns about the absence of a valley fill permit, and requesting an extensive amount of information concerning the mountaintop removal operation on the Bee Tree site.
In note of the this, Nick Martin, currently locked down, said, "The EPA's recent action proves that the communities' concerns about this site are shared at the highest levels of government."
Matt Louis-Rosenberg, a Climate Ground Zero activist, adds, "Coal River Wind attempted to get a meeting with the governor for a year and it took people sitting in his office to get him to sit down and meet with concerned community members, just like it takes our actions up on Coal River Mountain to get the federal government to step in."
The concern showed by the EPA reflects what the residents of the Coal River Valley have known for a long time; the Brushy Fork Impoundment is putting lives in danger, and the blasting on Coal River Mountain only increases that danger. The protestors on the Bee Tree site are putting out a call to action to save Coal River Mountain and protect all those who would be impacted by a catastrophe there. This action fits into a larger fight against mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
On the whole, Gunnoe's sentiment was, "Don't like much about Obama, but he'll have one heck of a supporter if he stops mountaintop mining."
Ken Ward Jr. reports that coalfields resident Bo Webb has requested a meeting with Gov. Manchin.
From Webb's e-mail:
I would like to bring a total of no less than 6 people with me. The people I desire to attend are Dr. Ben Stout, Dr, Michael Hendryx, Jack Spadaro, Robert Kennedy Jr., Rory McIlmoil, Judy Bonds, Janet Fout, Vernon Haltom.
I would not object to Bill Raney being in attendance if the Governor so desired. The Governor just last week publicly stated that no one from the environmental side had requested a meeting with him concerning MTR. I am asking.
Optimists hope that Manchin meant what he said when he stated his door was "always open" to those opposed to MTR.
Cynics believe the limited range of ideas in last week's meeting shows Manchin is responsive only to the coal barons.
The request has been made. Now the governor has a chance to prove his critics wrong.
Mercer County WV has not been a choice of Big Coal for Mountaintop Removal. Well guess what? A permit has been applied for and I believe granted for MTR in Mercer.
There will be a meeting for all who are concerned about MTR in Mercer County, WV tomorrow night at the Matoaka Town Hall... thats Tuesday 11/17 at 6pm for anyone who wants to learn more.
A lot of folks here in Mercer County are very pro-coal and seem to think that MTR does little or no harm to our environment. Check out this editorial in last Friday's Bluefield Daily Telegraph titled Our very lifeblood is under attack in southern West Virginia by Samantha Perry. Reading it you would think that our government in Washington has declared war on southern West Virginia and our way of life. It appears that the editorial staff of the paper is taking their position right from Don Blankenship's office at Massey Energy.
But now, once again, many feel we’re under attack. This time it’s not against our so-called “hillbilly” way of life, but our very lifeblood — coal.
There are few who were born and raised in this region who don’t have a connection to coal.
Regarding Mountaintop Removal the editiorial had this to say...
While many may not like the practice of mountaintop mining, the reality is that the coal retrieved by this practice also provides much-needed fuel for our nation and reclaimed land for other uses.
We’re not in Kansas, where flat land greets the eye wherever one scopes out a view. We’re in “Little Switzerland,” also known as the Mountain State, a place where mountaintop mine sites have provided roadbeds for interstate highways.
and this too...
If that’s not enough, we also have the Environmental Protection Agency’s review of 79 mountaintop mining permits across the Appalachian states — permits that were issued, but are now stalled because of the new administration’s penchant for “wait-a-minute” politics.
Now that MTR is coming to the Bluefield paper's back yard it will be very interesting to see how they reconcile their editorial position. The war is not on coal it is on Mountaintop Removal!
Manchin spokesman Matt Turner addressed the shut-out of the environmental side from the governor's upcoming summit with the coal barons.
He told the AP the meeting was requested by county commissioners "who are worried about how proposed federal actions could affect coal revenues."
And the reason environmentalists are banned:
He says groups opposed to mining have not been invited because the meeting is not about environmental regulations.
Are these guys getting together to discuss federal actions by the EPA relating to environmental regulations, or are they not discussing environmental regulations?
And, if the latter is true, how do they explain Randy Huffman's invitation to the event?
Today, organizations across the nation are joining forces with iLoveMountains.org to send a powerful message to the Obama Administration that blasting on Coal River Mountain needs to stop now. More than 500,000 people across the country are being asked to contact the 4 decision-makers in the Obama Administration that can put a stop to the blasting on Coal River Mountain. This could be the largest day of action on mountaintop removal ever, and we need your help to make history.
Will you take a moment to send a message to these decision-makers today?
Last week, we told you about how residents in southern West Virginia have been promoting a plan that would save the last remaining mountain in the Coal River Valley from mountaintop removal coal mining - through wind power. Your response to our appeal to contact the President was incredible. Reports came back from the White House of a deluge of calls, and in less than a week more than 1,500 new people joined the movement to end mountaintop removal coal mining.
But local reports of blasting on the mountain have continued to come in, and we need to redouble our efforts. Blasting is occuring directly next to the Brushy Fork slurry impoundment, a dam which holds 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. Every day that blasting continues, more than 1,000 people are in danger of being overtaken by a 50-foot high wall of coal sludge should the dam fail.
The fate of Coal River Mountain is still uncertain, but its implications for our energy future are clear. Will we continue down the path of destroying our nation's oldest mountains for a few years worth of coal, or seize the opportunity to produce clean wind power for 85,000 homes and generate green jobs and a new energy economy?
350.org
Center for Biological Diversity
CREDO
Heartwood
iLoveMountains.org
NRDC
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
RAN
Sierra Club
Waterkeeper Alliance
One of the (many) despicable tactics of the coal association just got repeated by our own Gov. Extraction State's spokesman, Matt Turner:
Spokesman Matt Turner says there's always political pressure from outside, but Manchin's responsibility is to West Virginians' needs.
It's not just outsiders, Matt Turner, or do West Virginians who care about keeping this the Mountain State instead of the Extraction State not count as citizens?
What about the needs of all those West Virginians who live near mountaintop removal sites and the damage caused by the floods and flying rocks? What about the governor's responsibility to them?
On the one hand Extraction State Gov. Joe Manchin tells those with concerns about potential disasters from mountaintop removal and other coal mining practices to just trust the regulators and on the other hand he constantly rails against regulators trying to do their jobs. So when Manchin wants a "sit down" with President Obama to talk about West Virginia coal, shouldn't he at least read up on the studies about the positive and negative consequences of being an extraction state so he'll be fully prepared?
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Gov. Joe Manchin is angling for a sit-down with President Barack Obama over his administration's stance on climate change and its pursuit of cap-and-trade legislation.
Manchin told The Associated Press on Tuesday that his state has a role to play as the nation considers cutting energy sources that affect the climate.
snip
"Coal is going to be our primary provider of electricity for the next 30 years. That's the practical reality,'' Manchin said. "West Virginia is very much willing to be involved and play a responsible role.''
The word "responsible" is key. When I look at videos like this, I don't see how anyone can call the devastation wrought upon our state in the name of King Coal as "responsible."
Gov. Joe Manchin has a lot of positive qualities. He does have the best interests of West Virginians and the state at heart. He's just wrong in many ways about what is always best for West Virginians and the state, particularly in the long term.
We want him to have a political future in this state, but when he takes the wrong stance on mountaintop removal and West Virginia being an "extractive state" he is hurting himself much more than he realizes because Big Coal has a voice out of proportion to the population. More than half of the state is opposed to mountaintop removal. That's not just Democrats who care about the environment and the state's economy. That's Democrats, independents, even some Republicans.
By not even reading the reports and studies on how mountaintop removal is hurting the environment and also has a detrimental impact on the state's economy, Manchin is revealing he discounts the views of the scientific community and more important to him politically the views of more than half the state's voters. A position that might win him a solid block of support in some parts of the state can also hurt him politically in other parts of the state.
But by not even reading the reports and studies, Manchin is also revealing to national figures that he is not a credible broker in dealing with coal issues. By not even knowing the basics of the issue, he has staked out a position that leaves him without room to negotiate properly. And we need him to be able to be that broker for the state on the national stage. I do not know why Manchin has blinded himself to the damage done to the state by mountaintop removal. But I believe Manchin cares enough about the people and the state's future to remove the mask blinding him. He needs to immediately study the work that has already been done.
People not just in this state but nationally are looking for Manchin to take a leadership role, but they are not willing to be led into a dead end. Touting West Virginia as an "extractive state" is leading the state to a dead end with a dying future.
Just as only Nixon could go to China, Manchin could take a lead in ending mountaintop removal. A break from the state's past and addiction to mountaintop removal would take strong and courageous leadership - the kind of leadership that would gain him positive national attention. It also would do much to earn him the respect of the majority of the voters in the state.
Check in out... another study shows that Mountaintop Removal coal mining does not provide the economic benefits its supporters claim.
New Report: Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Too Costly to Appalachia's Economies
Transition to Clean Energy Would Bring More Jobs, Economic Sustainability
Washington, D.C. -- The Sierra Club today released a groundbreaking new report that reaffirms the economic benefits of ending mountaintop removal coal mining and transitioning to clean energy sources in Appalachia. Conducted by Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., the report comes on the heels of the Obama administration's praiseworthy decision to review 79 permits for new mountaintop removal coal mining permits citing water quality concerns.
The report -- along with other recent studies of this most destructive form of coal mining -- shows that America can have affordable electricity without mountaintop removal because many factors contribute to the cost of electricity, with coal prices playing just one small part. There are an abundance of cost-effective alternatives to mountaintop removal coal - including natural gas, energy efficiency and renewable sources such as wind power and low-impact hydroelectric.
"This new report highlights the benefits for Appalachia that would result from ending mountaintop removal mining and transitioning to clean energy jobs," said Mary Anne Hitt, Deputy Director of Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "We can have affordable electricity without mountaintop removal, and we can protect our communities, streams, forests and mountains at the same time."
According to the report, mountaintop removal is not the economic savior for Appalachia that some have claimed. In fact, the studies show that other types of mining in Appalachia actually employ more workers, and that mountaintop removal coal mining costs state budgets more that it generates.
This week the Army Corps of Engineers is holding public hearings across Appalachia where hundreds of residents are calling for an end to a "one-size-fits-all" nationwide permit that has been used for years to allow this destructive type of coal mining. At the hearings, the coal industry will likely argue that radical strip mining benefits Appalachia's economy, but this new report reaffirms the value of clean energy.
The Synapse report demonstrates the importance of supporting clean energy sources instead of leveling areas for mountaintop removal coal mining. This radical form of blasting destroys clean energy sources. Appalachia can only tap the power of clean energy if the mountains, valleys and waterways that support these resources remain intact.
Find a full copy of the report, including an executive summary and a white paper on other recent mountaintop removal coal mining studies, at www.sierraclub.org/coal/factsheets.aspx
Update: If you plan to attend, be sure to read this and this.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding public hearings this evening on the streamlined permitted process they have been using for mountain top removal coal mining permits. One of the hearings will be held at the Charleston Civic Center, Little Theatre at 7:00 p.m.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced today it will hold six public hearings on Oct. 13 and 15 to receive public comments on the two proposals related to the use of Nationwide Permit (NWP) 21 in the nation's Appalachian region. NWP 21 authorizes discharges of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States for surface coal mining activities.
The first proposal is to modify NWP 21 to prohibit its use in the Appalachian region. In the absence of NWP 21, an applicant would be required to obtain an individual permit for surface coal mining projects. An individual permit includes increased public and agency involvement in the permit review process, including an opportunity for public comment on individual projects.
The second proposal is to suspend NWP 21 while the Corps evaluates the comments received on the proposed modification of NWP 21, and reaches its decision. The decision on whether to suspend NWP 21 will be made after the public hearings are held and the comments received on the proposed suspension have been considered. If NWP 21 is suspended during this interim period, an applicant would be required to obtain an individual permit for surface coal mining projects.
Click here for a public notice to solicit comments on the proposals as published in the July 15, 2009 Federal Register. In response to that notice, the Corps received several requests to hold public hearings on the proposals. Based on these requests, the Corps determined that hearings would provide additional information to assist in reaching decisions on the two proposals. It was decided that one hearing will be held in each of the six states affected by the two proposals. The states include: West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia. The hearings will be open to the public and held on the following dates and at the following locations:
· West Virginia: A public hearing will be held Oct. 13, 2009, in Charleston, W.Va. at the Charleston Civic Center, Little Theatre. Hosted by the Huntington District, the public hearing will start at 7:00 p.m. Click here for additional information on this public hearing.
· Kentucky: A public hearing will be held Oct. 13, 2009, in Pikeville, Ky. at the East Kentucky Expo Center. Hosted by the Louisville District, the public hearing will start at 7:00 p.m. Click here for additional information on this public hearing.
· Tennessee: A public hearing will be held Oct. 13, 2009, in Knoxville, Tenn. Hosted by the Nashville District, the public hearing will start at 7:00 p.m. Click here for additional information on this public hearing.
A few things lined up as the mountaintop removal issue continues to be front and center.
- The senior citizens march reaches its destination Monday
From a press release:
Protest Mountaintop Removal and Non-violent Civil Disobedience
When: Monday Oct. 12 4:00 PM
Where: Front Gate of Mammoth Coal on US-60 outside Cedar Grove
What: Come one come all, rise up to protest Mountaintop Removal! Those who so choose will take part in an act of non-violent civil disobedience. This will be the culmination of 25 miles of marching.
- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is holding a series of hearings across Appalachia on changes to the permit process for mountaintop removal.
West Virginia's is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 13 at the Charleston Civic Center's Little Theatre in Charleston. Both sides are pushing for a large turnout from supporters. The hearing begins at 7p.m.. Registration starts at 6p.m.
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Today, organizations across the nation are joining forces with iLoveMountains.org to send a powerful message to the Obama Administration that blasting on Coal River Mountain needs to stop now. More than 500,000 people across the country are being asked to contact the 4 decision-makers in the Obama Administration that can put a stop to the blasting on Coal River Mountain. This could be the largest day of action on mountaintop removal ever, and we need your help to make history.
