Tag: Coal

Support the Hobet 20! Anti-mountaintop removal activists held on $500,000 combined bail

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Following Saturday’s historic shutdown of the Hobet mine — Appalachia’s largest mountaintop removal site– Dustin Steele and at least nineteen other Appalachians and allies are being held on $25,000 bail each — a combined $500,000.*  Most are being charged with trespass and obstruction.

Donate to the Hobet 20’s legal fund here.

While we believe that these bail amounts are unconstitutionally excessive and may ultimately be reduced, we need to raise as much money as we possibly can to support those brave individuals who have put their bodies on the line to put a halt to the injustice of mountaintop removal mining.  According to Dustin, he was taken into a room and beaten by law enforcement while in custody.  Witnesses have reported that other protesters were brutalized by law enforcement while being taken into custody.  We need to work to ensure that anyone who wants to get out of jail can do so as soon as possible.

Mountaintop removal is a crime against humanity that has left a legacy of poisoned air and water, high cancer rates, economic exploitation, and devastated communities and ecosystems throughout Appalachia.   Corrupted legislators and regulators at the state and federal levels have failed to take action to stop these atrocities, leaving direct action as the last resort for conscientious residents aiming to save the land and people of Appalachia.

Please check www.rampscampaign.org for updates as we receive additional information about our friends in custody.

Mountain Mobilization shuts down largest mountaintop removal mine

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 28, 2012

Contact: Charles Suggs, 304-449-NVDA (6832), media@wg.rampscampaign.org
Talking Points document: http://rampscampaign.org/key-messages-of-mountain-mobilization/

“Mountain Mobilization” shuts down Logan Co. strip mine

Call for end to strip mining and a just transition for the region’s families

Charleston, W.Va.—More than 50 protesters affiliated with the R.A.M.P.S. Campaign have walked onto Patriot Coal’s Hobet mine and shut it down.  Ten people locked to a rock truck, boarded it and dropped banners: “Coal Leaves, Cancer Stays.”  At least three have been arrested, with another in a tree being threatened by miners with a chain saw.  Earlier in the day, two people were arrested at Kanawha State Forest before a group of protesters headed to the state capitol.

“The government has aided and abetted the coal industry in evading environmental and mine safety regulations. We are here today to demand that the government and coal industry end strip mining, repay their debt to Appalachia, and secure a just transition for this region,” Dustin Steele of Matewan, W.Va. said.  Steele was one of the people locked to the rock truck.

Mounting scientific evidence shows that strip mining negatively impacts community health and miner health.   Recent studies have found a 42 percent increase in risk of birth defects around strip mines, and miners who spend at least 20 years as strip-mine drillers have a 61 percent chance of contracting silicosis, a virulent form of black lung.  “The coal companies are poisoning our water and air, and they’re treating the workers no better than the land – fighting workplace health and safety protections to get the most out of labor as they can,” said Junior Walk of Whitesville, W.Va.

As coal production declines, protesters are concerned that the region will be left with only illness and environmental devastation as the industry pulls out of the region and companies file for bankruptcy to shed legacy costs.

Patriot Coal is currently going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in which union contracts and pensions could be on the chopping block.  Both UMWA pensions and the state’s Special Reclamation Fund are funded through a per-ton tax on coal.  With Central Appalachian coal production in the middle of a projected six-year, 50 percent decline, this funding stream is increasingly unsustainable.  Protesters are calling on the coal industry and government to ensure that funding is available both to honor commitments to retired workers and to restore the land.

“Coal companies must employ their surface mine workers in reclaiming all disturbed land to the highest standards.  Instead of arguing about the ‘war on coal,’ political leaders should immediately allocate funds to retrain and re-employ laid off miners to secure a healthy future for the families of this region,” said R.A.M.P.S. spokesperson Mathew Louis-Rosenberg.

Appalachian communities, from union miners to the anti-strip mining activists of the 1960s, have a proud history of confronting the coal industry and demanding an end to its exploitive practices with direct civil disobedience. R.A.M.P.S. and other campaigns have returned to this tradition to eliminate strip mining once and for all. Since its founding in 2011, R.A.M.P.S. has organized a range of actions, from tree-sits to blockades of coal trucks.

Today’s protesters are among the hundreds of people across the country who are joining this summer’s National Uprising Against Extraction, using radical tactics to fight oppressive extractive industries and demand a transition to a sustainable economy.

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Media Advisory: Dozens of people to walk onto West Virginia strip mine next week, shut it down

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PRESS ADVISORY, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mat Louis-Rosenberg
Phone: 304-449-NVDA (6832)
E-mail: media@wg.rampscamaign.org

Dozens of people to walk onto strip mine next week, shut it down

Who: RAMPS (Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival), local and regional allies, activists from around the country.

What: The Mountain Mobilization–largest in U.S. history protest to shut down a strip mine in Southern West Virginia.  The movement against mountaintop removal has been gaining ground, with the longest tree sit in the history of the eastern US last summer, coal barge and truck blockades this Spring, and June’s sit-ins in Washington D.C. Meanwhile, environmental protections are under attack by politicians serving corporate interests. “Mountain Mobilization” is part of a national uprising against fossil fuels taking place this summer. In sharp contrast to Washington inaction, ordinary citizens around the country are turning to the proud American tradition of direct action– from July 28’s Stop The Frack Attack protest in Washington D.C. to August’s Coal Export Action in Helena, Montana.  RAMPS and allies will not back down until the Obama Administration takes decisive action to protect American communities from these extreme extraction industries.

When: Wednesday July 25 – Wednesday August 1, with mass walk-on to a strip mine July 28

Where: Southern West Virginia.  Contact us to be present for the mass walk-on on July 28.

Why: Demand the end to a mining practice that is destroying communities and an end to government inaction.  Mountaintop removal is a high-technology mining technique that has reduced employment in Appalachia and endangered the health and safety of mountain communities.  Numerous studies have shown clear links between the technique and cardiovascular disease, birth defects, cancer, and other illnesses.  Junior Walk, a native of southern West Virginia’s Coal River Valley who has experienced first-hand the health impacts of growing up with polluted water, says,  “King Coal is feeling the pressure like never before, and that means this is the most important time to ramp up resistance.  Now is when we decide if we let the coal industry strip it all before deserting Appalachia or if we send them packing while we still have mountains.”

RAMPS Media: Pro-Mountain Activists Board Coal Barge & Blockade Kayford Strip Mine Haul Road

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Pro-mountain activists board coal barge and blockade Kayford strip mine
haul road

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Contact: Robert Livingston 304.731.1740
http://action.mountainjustice.org

KAYFORD, W.Va. –Mountain Justice and RAMPS activists blocked coal 
transport in two locations Thursday morning. Five boarded a barge 
on the Kanawha River near Chelyan, with a large banner that
read “Coal leaves, cancer stays,” and locked their bodies to the barge. At
the same time, dozens of concerned citizens obstructed access to the haul
road on Kayford Mountain, stopping coal trucks from entering or
leaving the Republic Energy mine.

“These actions against coal transport were taken because the viability and
health of mountain communities are being destroyed by mountaintop
removal—the coal and the profits are shipped away, leaving disease and
destruction in their wake,” Rebecca Loeb, one of the people on the barge
said.

According to Nathan Joseph, another activist on the barge, the struggle
against mountaintop removal in Appalachia is linked to the struggles of
other fossil fuel extraction communities across North America and the world.

“The coal industry's continued disregard for the well-being of Appalachian
communities is connected to the struggles of other North American
extraction communities. Strip mining tar sands for
low-quality oil, fracking for dirty gas and deep sea oil drilling are signs we are scraping the bottom of the barrel. The extraction,
transport, processing and combustion of these fuels all disproportionately impact low-income communities, indigenous communities,and communities of color,” Joseph said.

According to a
study co-authored by Dr. Michael Hendrix in 2011, a researcher at West Virginia
University, “Self-reported cancer rates were significantly higher in the
mining versus the non-mining area after control for respondent age, sex,
smoking, occupational history, and family cancer history (odds ratio =
2.03, 95% confidence interval = 1.32–3.13). Mountaintop mining is linked to
increased community cancer risk.” The study's researchers collected data from 773 adults in door-to-door
interviews.

As people in West Virginia see the lack of opportunities, they often leave
the area to pursue a future elsewhere. Larry Gibson, of Kayford said, “Our
biggest export in this state besides coal is our young people.”

Marilyn Mullens of Coolridge, W.Va., said “Clean water and air is a human
right. My electricity is not worth my human rights being violated–I’ll live
with the lights off. I want my children and grandchildren to enjoy the
beauty of West Virginia. We’re tired of the corporations lording over us,
and no one is hearing our voices, so it’s time to take it further than
talking.” Mullens is an organizer of Women United to End Mountaintop
Removal, a May 28 event, in which women will shave their heads in front of
the W.Va. Capitol in protest of mountaintop removal.

“For the past 150 years the coal industry has been pillaging this place and
taking everything, leaving nothing but death and destruction in their wake.
I am personally very thankful to these young folks who ain't from around
here necessarily who decided to put their freedom and bodies on the line to
stop this vicious cycle, even if it is just for one day,” Junior Walk of XX
said, “I would love to see some of my native West Virginia brothers and
sisters stand up and tell this industry they can't do this anymore.”