Mountaintop removal ProtestActivists Risk Arrest to Stop Mountaintop Removal

Thursday June 18th, 2009 – 1:30 PM EST

14 Activists Arrested in Peaceful Protest to Stop
Mountaintop Removal scaled 20-story tall machinery to call attention to
nation’s worst form of coal mining in first ever ascent of a
mountaintop removal site’s dragline.

COAL RIVER VALLEY, W. VA –  At 5:00AM this morning
14 concerned citizens entered onto Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal
mine site near Twilight WV. Four of them scaled a 150-foot dragline and
unfurled a 15×150 foot banner that said, “Stop Mountaintop Removal
Mining”.  The climbers were on the enormous dragline, a massive piece
of equipment that removes house-sized chunks of blasted rock and earth
to expose coal, and remained there for over three hours. Meanwhile nine
others deployed a 20×40 foot banner on the ground at the site which
read, “Stop Mountaintop Removal:  Clean Energy Now”.

Police arrested David Hollister, Melissa O’Neil, Chelsea Ritter
Soronen, Lynn Stone, Charles Suggs, Rodney Webb, Jeanne Kirshon, John
Johnson Greg Yost, Jessica Sue Eley, Lisa Ramsden, David Pike, Paul
Brown, and Kurt Delano Mann.  The group is expected to be arraigned
early this afternoon at Boone County Jail in Madison, West VA.

This act of peaceful protest comes just days after the Obama
Administration announced a plan to reform, but not abolish, the
aggressive strip mining practice.

“I’ve written letters, attended hearings and called my congressman,
so far they have done nothing to stop the disastrous and unnecessary
practice of mountaintop removal,” said Charles Suggs, a 25-year old of
Rock Creek, WV who was one of those climbing today. “It has come to the
point when we must take direct action to abolish this practice that is
immorally robbing Appalachian communities of their culture, their
health and their future.”

This is the first time a dragline has been scaled on a mountaintop
removal site, and marks the latest in a string of protests in West
Virginia by residents and allies from across the country.  Another
protest is set for June 23rd in the Coal River Valley area with local
coalfield residents, NASA climate scientist James Hansen, actress Daryl
Hannah, and 94-year-old former US Representative Ken Hechler, and
Rainforest Action Network Executive Director Michael Brune, among many
others.

“It’s way past time for civil disobedience to stop mountaintop
removal and move quickly toward clean, renewable energy sources,” said
Judy Bonds, Goldman Environmental Prize winner and co-director of Coal
River Mountain Watch of West Virginia. “For over a century, Appalachian
communities have been crushed, flooded, and poisoned as a result of the
country’s dangerous and outdated reliance on coal. How could the
country care so little about our American mountains, our culture and
our lives?”

An increasing number of concerned Appalachians and environmentalists
are calling for the end to mountaintop removal, a practice that harms
the people and places of Appalachia, destroys the economic potential of
the Appalachian Mountains for long term clean energy opportunities and
jobs, and furthers the burning of climate-killing coal.

Every day, mountaintop removal mines use more explosive power than
the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Mining companies are
clear-cutting thousands of acres of some of the world’s most
biologically diverse forests.  They’re burying biologically crucial
headwaters streams with blasting debris, releasing toxic levels of
heavy metals into the remaining streams and groundwater and poisoning
essential drinking water. According to the EPA, this destructive
practice has damaged or destroyed nearly 2,000 miles of streams and
threatens to destroy 1.4 million acres of forest by 2020.

Just days before this action, the Obama Administration announced
steps to end the fast-tracking of certain mountaintop removal coal mine
permits and to add tougher enforcement in Appalachia. However, it
remains unclear what, if any, improvements this will have on-the-ground
in Appalachia or elsewhere. Without a significant change in policy,
mining companies will continue to destroy historic mountain ranges and
bury community’s drinking water in toxic waste.

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For more information, please visit www.mountainaction.org

Youtube videos and updates of the action are also available