Category: RT Press Releases

Eight Jailed After Alpha HQ Blockade and Banner Hang

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lockCross-posted from the RAMPS Campaign

Update: Five of the eight have been bailed out.  The remaining three are expected to have bail hearings on Wednesday or Thursday. Read all updates here.

June 23, 2014. Bristol, VA All of our friends arrested in the Alpha headquarters action were arraigned in front of a judge this morning after spending the weekend in Jail. While none of them can be released from jail until their bail is set, only some of them will get bail hearings this afternoon. If enough donations are made to the legal defense fund, we may be able to get some of them out of jail today or tomorrow!  While it’s looking like half or more of our friends won’t be able to get a hearing today, we hope to raise money in the interim so that we’re able to make bail as soon as it is set.

Over the past decade, the Mountain Justice Legal Defense Fund has made it possible for countless people to risk arrest in actions and for our movement to bail those arrested out when they needed it. Donations to the legal defense fund are usually used not just once, but again and again as court cases are resolved and those funds return. In other words, one donation can help action after action over the years. Right now, our fund is critically low because many activists are still out on bail for other Mountain Justice actions that have happened this year.

If you can, please donate to the legal fund to make it possible to bail out the 8 people in jail now and to support our ongoing work.

Our friends who were arrested near Alpha’s headquarters thought a lot about the issue before taking action. Here are the statements that they made about why they are organizing against Alpha Natural Resources:

Galen pic for website

 

Galen

“I’m participating in this action in solidarity with my friends in Appalachia whose daily lives are affected by Alpha Natural Resources’ operations. I’m also doing this to send a message to Alpha that they cannot continue the wholesale destruction of mountain communities.”

Maleny
maleny for website

 

“Those who got arrested in this action, who were protesting against the unethical practices of Alpha Natural Resources, aren’t the true criminals. The true criminals are those who are ordering the destruction of these beautiful mountains, symbols of history, culture, and community.”

Camilo for website

Camilo

“Extreme extraction is very close to my family’s story, and the destruction of mountains is near to my heart. My father’s hometown in Peru is right next to the largest gold mine in the world, Yanacocha. As long as I can remember, I’ve had family who worked in the mine – and against it. My grandfather taught me that according to his indigenous beliefs, each mountain has an Apu – its own spirit. I’m here today in solidarity with the people of Appalachia, to demand an end to Alpha’s mountaintop removal mining. I’m standing up for the mountains and all of the life that depends on them.”

Dakota
Dakota for website

 

“How can we live in a society where corporations like Alpha are allowed to strip the land, blow up mountains, pollute the water and the air we breathe? People are sick and dying because of mountaintop removal, and it’s time we held corporations accountable.”

roger

Roger

“I oppose MTR because it harms life.  I risked arrest alongside friends practically guaranteed for it because of what has left the sphere of risk and entered into reality and living history for Appalachian communities, working and incarcerated people, and the mountains that sustain them.  I will not negotiate on the right to clean water and decent livelihood for everyone.  Instead I will act to ensure it.”

No Business as Usual at Alpha Headquarters

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flagReposted from the RAMPS Campaign

June 20, 2014 — Bristol, VA. Three activists with Mountain Justice and Radical Action for Mountains and People’s Survival (RAMPS) are currently stopping business as usual at Alpha Natural Resources headquarters in Bristol, VA, in protest of Alpha’s devastating practices of mountaintop removal coal mining. Activists were protesting the opening of new mines on Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia. Two protestors are locked in front of the front doors of the office, while a third is hanging from a flag pole displaying a banner that reads “Save Coal River Mountain”

“That mountain is the mountain I learned to hunt on, it’s the mountain that’s sustained my family for generations. I’ll be a dead man before I see them take what’s left up there,” said
Junior Walk, of West Virginia. Walk lives in the Coal River Valley, directly below Alpha operations on Coal River Mountain. Alpha recently began blasting on the 264 acre Collins Fork mine. Local residents and activists have opposed surface mining on Coal River Mountain since the late 1990s.

2014-06-20 06.25.05-2“I am here today to demand an end to Alpha’s role in the destruction of Appalachia. While coal is exported and profits leave the region, the health effects remain in the communities,” said Camilo Pereira, one of the protestors blocking the office. Two of the protesters in a lockbox at the front door of Alpha’s headquarters and blocked the entrance.

While coal production has decreased nationwide in the past years, coal exports are at an all-time high. The overwhelming majority of coal extracted from Coal River Mountain is metallurgical coal used primarily to produce steel and is likely bound for export markets. Adam Hall, of Glen Daniel, WV, said, “As a country, we have made great strides against the dangers of coal fired power plants. However, new emission regulations will not stop Alpha from blowing up Coal River Mountain and endangering my home and family.”

More than 20 peer-reviewed studies demonstrate a connection between mountaintop removal coal mining operations and increased cases of lung and heart diseases, as well as increased birth defects, early mortality, and depression.

The RAMPS Campaign’s ongoing work against Alpha Natural Resources demands an end to Alpha’s mountaintop removal practices in Appalachia. Furthermore, RAMPS urges the company to re-employ miners for effective and thorough reclamation of retired and abandoned mine sites.

Photos of today’s protest can be found here when available.

Mountain Justice is a regional and national network that has worked for 10 years to support community based, grassroots efforts to end Mountaintop Removal and build a brighter future in Appalachia.

BREAKING: Rising Tide Vermont, Addison County Residents, Stage Sit-In at Public Service Board Demanding a Halt to Pipeline Construction

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RT VT 34Montpelier, VT – Landowners and climate activists opposed to the Vermont Fracked Gas pipeline staged a sit-in today at the Department of Public Service, calling on the agency and the Public Service Board to suspend pipeline construction until they address possible widespread hazardous soil and water contamination along the proposed pipeline route.

“We’re here to let the Department and the Board know that without adequate intervention, pipeline construction threatens to disturb soils contaminated with hazardous chemicals,” said Jonathan Shapiro, of Rising Tide Vermont.

The demonstrators, including several Monkton landowners who live along the proposed pipeline route, are concerned that pipeline construction along the VELCO corridor could expose more people and water to contaminated soils.

Dangerous levels of Pentachlorophenol (PCP), a wood preservative used to treat utility poles, showed up in a Monkton resident’s drinking water last month. [1] The contamination was caused by VELCO maintenance work in preparation for the proposed fracked gas pipeline.

PCP is classified as a probable human carcinogen. [2] Short-term exposure can cause ear, eye and respiratory irritation, and lead to liver and kidney complications.  A bill to regulate treated utility poles was introduced in the Vermont legislature in 2012, due to previous cases of PCP contamination in the state. [3]

Over twenty-five Monkton residents also plan to file a motion with the Board today, requesting that they investigate the issue of contamination. Monkton resident Selena Peyser submitted a similar request to the Board on May 7. The Board has not responded to this request at all.

“I’m deeply concerned that pipeline construction could expose toxic soil, and the state agencies charged with protecting the public from this sort of thing are sweeping our concerns under the rug,” said Maren Vasatka, a Monkton homeowner. Vasatka is currently embroiled in a battle with Vermont Gas over an easement to run the pipeline through her property, along the VELCO corridor.

Over 20 miles of the pipeline route runs alongside the VELCO corridor in Chittenden and Addison counties. The recent contamination incident in Monkton raises concerns about contamination along the rest of the corridor.

“I can’t imagine why the Public Service Board, Department of Public Service and Vermont Gas would want to risk poisoning water instead of taking time to perform adequate testing,” Vasatka said.

The demonstrators, who planned to maintain the sit-in until the Board or the Department of Public Service agreed to pursue the matter, drew connections to larger issues of soil and water contamination caused by fracking.

“From the frackfields of Alberta to the farmland of Addison County, fracking infrastructure is threatening our land, water and our health,” Shapiro said.

Rising Tide urged supporters to attend the upcoming public hearing on Phase 2 of the pipeline this Thursday, June 12, at 7 pm at Middlebury High School.

[1] Tainted water leads to Addison County concern. http://www.mychamplainvalley.com/story/d/story/tainted-water-leads-to-addison-county-concern/15072/GBXJ8B5ir0-vrcu2GrSZKg

[2] US EPA. Registration Eligibility Decision for Pentachlorophenol. http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/pentachlorophenol_red.pdf

[3] Vermont Department of Health (2009). Pentachlorophenol contamination of private drinking water from treated utility poles

Climate justice activists blockade Vermont Gas headquarters in protest of fracked gas pipeline

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sara vtClimate justice activists have blockaded the main entrance to Vermont Gas’s headquarters and dropped a massive banner from the roof, demanding the company immediately cancel its plans to build the fracked gas pipeline.  Police are on scene, and the company’s retail offices are effectively shut down for the day.

Sara Mehalick, a resident of Plainfield, Vermont, has locked her neck to the main entrance of the building, effectively blockading the doors shut.  She released a statement about why she undertook today’s action:

Today I’m taking action because Vermont Gas is intent upon shackling our communities to fossil fuels, and condemning us to irreversible climate change.  We have a responsibility to the communities whose land, water, and air are being poisoned by fracking, and we’re determined to make sure that this fracked gas pipeline does not move forward.  Today we’re here to tell Vermont Gas to cancel their construction plans, or expect to see growing resistance.

RT VT2Jonathan Shapiro, with Rising Tide Vermont, said “Climate change is already driving heat waves, torrential rains, and flooding in the Northeast, which is only predicted to worsen in the coming years.  In this context of mounting climate crisis, building new fossil fuel infrastructure is an exercise in complete lunacy and must be stopped.”