Daring Protesters Shut Down Strip Mine In West Virginia; 500,000 in Bail Needed!!!!

29.7.12

Ramp­ing up renewed efforts to end moun­tain­top removal min­ing in cen­tral Appalachia, scores of pro­test­ers staged a dar­ing action at the con­tro­ver­sial Hobet strip mine today in Boone Coun­ty, West Vir­ginia, shut­ting down oper­a­tions through a series of coor­di­nat­ed lock downs, tree-sits and ban­ner drops. In a sym­bol­ic chal­lenge to the Oba­ma administration’s failed reg­u­la­to­ry poli­cies, the protest tar­get­ed the Hobet 45 moun­tain­top removal mine, which had been grant­ed a wide­ly denounced per­mit over two years ago.

Accord­ing to RAMPS, a West Vir­ginia-based grass­roots groups that orga­nized the “moun­tain mobi­liza­tion” protest as part of a nation­wide sum­mer of actions against dev­as­tat­ing extrac­tion indus­try oper­a­tions, St. Louis-based mine own­er Patri­ot Coal has left behind a lega­cy of destruc­tion in coal coun­try for both area res­i­dents and min­ers. Patri­ot filed for bank­rupt­cy ear­li­er this month, which could also affect pen­sion and Unit­ed Mine Work­ers of Amer­i­ca union con­tracts.

“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,” said Dustin Steele of Mate­wan, West Vir­ginia, in a released state­ment. The son and grand­son of union coal min­ers, Steele took part in one of the truck lock­downs.

Cit­ing the mount­ing evi­dence of the health and human­i­tar­i­an crises in the coal­fields from tox­ic min­ing fall­out, includ­ing a rise in black lung dis­ease and links to birth defects and can­cer, the pro­test­ers also sta­tioned ban­ners on the mine site: “Coal Leaves, Can­cer Stays.”

“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, a for­mer coal com­pa­ny employ­ee from near­by Whitesville, West Vir­ginia, who won the 2011 Brow­er Youth Award for his envi­ron­men­tal activism.

Pro­test­ers also called on the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion and region­al politi­cians to launch more sus­tain­able job train­ing and coal­field regen­er­a­tion projects.

Coal min­ing res­i­dents have plead­ed for basic civ­il rights and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion for years, with more than 20 peer-reviewed stud­ies sug­gest­ing high­er risks and links between reck­less strip min­ing and dev­as­tat­ing health impacts, includ­ing birth defects, can­cer and chron­ic heart, lung and kid­ney dis­ease. (A recent report not­ed that strip min­ers are even sub­ject­ed to unac­cept­able lev­els of black lung dis­ease.)

A bill, the ACHE Act, call­ing for an emer­gency mora­to­ri­um on moun­tain­top removal min­ing was recent­ly intro­duced into Con­gress.

For updates on the protests and arrests, fol­low RAMPS cam­paign.

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