Mountain-top Removal Activists Persevere Through Harassment, Assault and Arrests

by Sue Frankel-Streit

The stand-off at the one lane bridge in front of Massey Coal on June 23rd may have epitomized the stakes for both company and community in the ongoing struggle over mountain top removal. Years of deep passion and thick fear on both sides of the issue met in the street in front of the West Virginia coal company that afternoon.

The hot, summer day began with a tense rally at Marsh Fork Elementary school attended by about 250 local and out-of-towner protesters, and protested by as many Massy miners. The atmosphere was electric, with furious miners initially surrounding the anti-MTR musicians, yelling threats and insults. The small group of fiddlers countered with an upbeat tune, only to be drowned out when miners pulled the plug on the amplifier. A lone banjo player climbed onto a small flat-bed trailer, sat down on a 5-gallon bucket and played for all he was worth. Miners crowded around, insulting his music, blowing air canister horns, daring him to stop playing and respond. On and on he played, drawing the rally around him. MTR protestors clapped and even danced. Miners derided him, but as his
only response was more and better music, they eventually gave up. Next to the amp, a grizzled miner and a nattily clad MTR activist held a long, cordial exchange on the issue. Police eventually separated the two sides, and the rally's speakers took the microphone. The rally was long, hot, and punctuated repeatedly by harassment of the speakers by the miners. Local activists received special venom and personal attacks on their character. And the Rainforest Action Network speaker who admitted to being from California was practically booed of the stage.

At the end of the rally, activists walked two-by-two up Route 3 to Massey's site. 400 yards up the road from the school, the bridge that acts as Massey's driveway was packed with angry miners, standing shoulder to shoulder a dozen rows deep, daring activists to try and get through to the site. 31 protesters sat down in front of the miners, blocking Route 3; local police, SWAT officers and activist peace keepers interspersed between them and the miners.

As she approached the site, Judy Bonds, long-time local anti-MTR activist was brutally slapped by one of the women from the Massey side before both were arrested, Judy for trespass, the woman for assault. While police continued to arrest activists, 92-year-old Winnie Fox stood in the middle of the read, leaning on her walker. At her feet sat other protesters, including Darryl Hannah, astronaut Jim Hansen and four recent high-school graduates from Maryland. To her left, sheer rocky
mountain rose up from the road, dwarfing not only Winnie, but also the SWAT officer standing beside her, a two-foot long automatic assault rifle strapped to his chest like a baby. To her right, not being arrested, a mass of miners protected the entrance to their work site. "Put you feet where your mouth is," they yelled. "Just try and cross this bridge".

Winnie Fox raised her fragile fist and shook it; not at the miners, some of whom were likely her relatives, but at the Massey plant behind them, and at the 2.8 billion gallons of coal sludge sitting just above the school. Like other activists, Winnie was there to put her body on the line to stop mountain top removal and demand that Massey stop endangering Marsh Fork school children. If the slurry impoundment dam above the school ever broke, activists say (and counter protesters admitted) the school would have just three minutes to evacuate the children. Meanwhile, coal ash from the site is causing asthma. After arrests were made, the remaining protesters, who'd remained standing in the road, returned to Marsh Fork, followed by the miners. As protesters on both sides dispersed, a crowd of angry miners collected, continuing to yell fresh insults, despite 6 hours of standing in the heat.

Exhausted local activists went up the road to the jail to await the release of those arrested, who emerged from the station with charges of trespassing and a July 8th court date. Out-of-towners took one last swim in the breathtaking beauty of Coal River's cold waters and began their long drives back to other places-places that burn Massey coal without breathing its coal dust; places where one can denounce mountain top removal without fear of an armed miner on a four-wheeler blazing into
one's camp at night. Local activists went home, too, to coal-powered houses and coal dusty air, to the threat of contaminated water and harassment from neighbors worried about losing their livelihoods if Massey stops blowing the tops off the mountains that are everyone's
backyard.


The People United is calling together a group of VA activists to travel to WV for an action in support of the campaign to stop MTR mining in early to mid-September. For more information contact:
Sue Frankel-Streit (540)967-5574 littleflowercw(at)wildmail.com or
Jeff Winder (434) 906-0421 jeff(at)thepeopleunited.org

For more information about the campaign visit the Mountain Action website.