From WV to WY to You: Tree-sits to halt mountaintop removal in West Virginia

From a Twin Cities activist in Pettry Bottom, W. Va.—Think twice the next time you turn on your computer. The source of most of our energy in the Twin Cities is under attack.

Two people have occupied treetops in the small West Virginian communities of Pettry Bottom and Peach Tree within the blasting zone of a Massey Energy mountaintop removal coal-mining site.

At 6:30 am the two activists, associated with environmental groups Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice, unrolled banners reading “Stop Mountain Top Removal” and “DEP – Don’t Expect Protection” from their treetop platforms. The two are perched 80 feet above the ground, within 30 feet of the mine, and within 300 feet of blasting. Regulations prohibit use of any explosives when people are within the blasting zone.

The tree sitters have refused to come down until blasting ceases above Pettry Bottom, Massey Energy commits to paying the full cost of healthcare and home repair for Pettry Bottom and Peach Tree residents, and the Federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement commits to supervising the full reclamation of the blasting mine, which began blasting in the summer of 2008.

Mountaintop removal (MTR) is the destructive and unsustainable practice of surface mining that involves deforesting an area of mountain, then using explosives to blast the rock and subsoil to expose underlying coal seams. Aside from the environmental concerns over burning coal for power, MTR mining flattens and poisons mountain ranges like the Appalachians, devastating the environment and local communities for the benefit of a small number of industrial corporations.

Today’s action is aimed at directly interfering with and shutting down industrial coal mine operations that require mountaintop removal in Appalachia. The MTR site targeted by this action is a predominant coal mine from which Xcel Energy Inc. of Minnesota gets its energy.

Black Thunder, the Thunder Basin Coal Co., LLT, is a Wyoming-based facility that sells coal mined from Pettry Bottom, Peach Tree, and other parts of Central Appalachia to power plants across the country, including Xcel Energy. The coal that feeds Xcel’s power plants in the Twin Cities comes from these mountain communities, which are being blown up in the process of extraction. Anyone who powers their home with Xcel Energy is affected by these actions that target the blasting sites.

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the governmental agency which claims to oversee and regulate MTR coal mining. In practice the West Virginia DEP (WVDEP) is complicit in the environmental and economic devastation executed by the mining corporations by intentionally overlooking fly-rock problems, not enforcing regulations, and absolving the industry of blame.

Massey Energy and the other industry giants are based outside of West Virginia. The money generated from the large-scale operations does not stay in West Virginia, but is funneled to the headquarters of the corporations.

The residents of Appalachian mountain towns depend on the industrial giants for the dangerous, unstable employment, and our country depends on the industry for our consumptive energy needs. Coal keeps West Virginia poor and the rest of us complacent.

According to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Administration publication and multiple cases of citizen documentation, fly-rock has been known to land half a mile from blasting sites. Several homes in Pettry Bottom are within a half-mile radius of the permitted blasting area—putting them well within range of fugitive fly-rock and silica-laden dust clouds. Numerous houses in the area have been damaged, run-off has increased, and repertory illnesses have abounded.  A map available fromAurora Lights at http://auroralights.org/map_project/images/maps/hazy/Permitted_MTR_Mines.jpg shows the proximity of homes in Pettry Bottom to blasting on the targeted site. 

Mountaintop removal has ravaged the people and land of central and southern Appalachia for years. Over 1,900 miles of headwater streams have been buried, 500 mountains leveled, 1,000,000 acres of land stripped, groundwater contaminated, taxonomical orders of species annihilated, and countless communities displaced.

This is the thirteenth in a series of direct actions and protests since February of this year that have united residents of the area, climate scientists, environmental activists, students, underground miners, veterans, and concerned citizens from across the nation around the goal of ending mountaintop removal.

Learn more about how this struggle in the Appalachians is connected to you at ilovemountains.org/myconnections and climategroundzero.org