Tag: RAMPS

Protesters Hold UBS Accountable for Funding Mountaintop Removal in Series of Protests

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

11/25/13
Contact: Mathew Louis-Rosenberg
Phone: 304-860-5041
Email: snollygaster@gmail.com

Protesters Hold UBS Accountable for Funding Mountaintop Removal in Series
of Protests

Stamford, CT – Early this morning, three activists hung a huge banner reading “UBS. Stop Funding Mountaintop Removal” off of a crane constructing the 66 Summers St building in downtown Stamford.   Later in the day two activists entered the UBS headquarters in Stamford, locking themselves to a bannister and hanging a banner reading “UBS. Divest from Mountaintop Removal”, while others locked themselves to the outside doors of the building.   The protests are a part of the Hands Off Appalachia, a sustained campaign to get UBS to end all financing of companies conducting mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

“Over the last two years, I have visited UBS’s offices over 30 times pleading with them to stop the destruction of Appalachian communities. Today, I’m not asking anymore.  I’m demanding an end to UBS’s financing of mountaintop removal.” said Ricki Draper of Knoxville, TN who is locked inside the UBS headquarters.

Mountaintop removal is an extreme form of strip-mining in which coal companies blast up to a thousand feet off the top of a mountain to extract thin seams of coal.  The resulting rubble is often placed in the valley below burying headwater streams.  Over 1 million acres of forest in Central Appalachia have been destroyed and over 2,000 miles of streams have been buried by this practice.  Recent research has linked mountaintop removal to increased rates of cancer, birth defects and cardiovascular disease in communities near these mining operations.  UBS is a top funder of companies that conduct mountaintop removal such as Alpha Natural Resources, Patriot Coal, and Arch Coal.  On Friday, organizers with Hands Off Appalachia met with UBS executives at their office in Stamford to discuss UBS’s existing policy on mountaintop removal.

“[At the meeting] I was ‘reassured’ [by UBS executives] that UBS’s policy on mountaintop removal was sufficient enough to protect my people.  I wholeheartedly disagree.  The reality is that their ‘policy’ is nothing more than an excuse to remove themselves from the truth that as UBS profits, my people suffer,” said Adam Hall of Glen Daniel, W.Va. who blocked the entrance to UBS’s headquarters today.

UBS’s existing policy claims to “recognize the potential environmental, social, and human rights impacts of this industry sector” and take into consideration “concerns of stakeholder groups”, but UBS officials have never traveled to Appalachia to witness the impacts or met with impacted community members until last Friday.  The policy also claims to take into account regulatory compliance, but UBS financed Massey Energy and oversaw their merger with Alpha Natural Resources even after Massey was fined $20 million by the EPA for over 4,600 violations of the Clean Water Act.

Started in Knoxville, TN, the Hands Off Appalachia Campaign has spent two years engaging with UBS about their funding of the destruction of Appalachian through this extreme form of strip mining. HOA has organized dozens of actions and protests at local UBS offices all over Appalachia and the Southeast.

This summer, HOA escalated their campaign against UBS when three organizers blocked the entrance to the Knoxville UBS branch, the point of inception for the campaign. This action was the thirty-third time in sixteen months that campaign organizers had visited that office. On the heels of that action followed a blockade at UBS’ North American Headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. There, four organizers with Hands Off Appalachia and Capitalism vs. the Climate, a climate justice direct action group based in Connecticut, took a stand against UBS in solidarity with communities in Appalachia. This action launched the northeast leg of our campaign against UBS. Yesterday, activists with the campaign picketed UBS’s Parade Spectacular in Stamford, handing out leaflets and displaying a large banner
reading “UBS Stop Funding Mountaintop Removal.”

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Activists Disrupt Arch Coal Corporate HQ In St. Louis

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arch prayCREVE COEUR, MO —  Seven affiliated with the RAMPS campaign (Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival), MORE (Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment) and Mountain Justice are locked down to a 500-pound small potted tree in Arch Coal’s third-floor headquarters while a larger group is in the lobby performing a song and dance.  Additionally, a helium balloon banner with the message “John Eaves Your Coal Company Kills”, directed at the Arch Coal CEO was released in at the Arch Coal headquarters.

Seven protesters locked down outside the corporate office of Arch Coal.

“We’re here to halt Arch’s operations for as long as we can. These coal corporations do not answer to communities, they only consume them.  We’re here to resist their unchecked power,” explained Margaret Fetzer, one of the protestors.

Arch Coal, the second largest coal company in the U.S., operates strip mines in Appalachia and in other U.S. coal basins. Strip mining is an acutely destructive and toxic method of mining coal, and resource extraction disproportionately impacts marginalized communities.

“From the Battle of Blair Mountain to the current fight with the Patriot pensions, the people of central Appalachia have been fighting against the coal companies for the past 125 years. The struggle continues today as we take action to hold Arch Coal and other coal companies accountable for the damage that they do to people and communities in Appalachia and around the world. Coal mining disproportionately impacts indigenous peoples, and we stand in solidarity with disenfranchised people everywhere,”  Dustin Steele of Mingo County, W.Va. said.  Steele was one of the people locked in Arch’s office.

Mingo County is representative of the public health crisis faced by communities overburdened by strip mining.  A recent study of life expectancies placed Mingo County in the bottom 1 percent out of 3,147 counties nationwide.

Arch’s strip mines not only poison communities, but also seek to erase the legacy of resistance to the coal companies in Appalachia. Arch’s Adkins Fork Surface Mine is blasting threatening to blast away Blair Mountain—the site of the second largest uprising in U.S. history and a milestone in the long-standing struggle between Appalachians and the coal companies. 

The devastation of Arch’s strip mines plague regions beyond Appalachia.  Arch’s operation in the Powder River Basin is the “single largest coal mining complex in the world.”  Producing 15 percent of the U.S. coal supply, Arch is a major culprit of the climate crisis.

NASA scientist James Hansen describes the burning of coal as a leading cause global climate change.  The Midwest region faces serious public health impacts from climate change due to “increased heat wave intensity and frequency, degraded air quality, and reduced water quality” according to recently published data from the National Climate Assessment.

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.

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.”