FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
31 August 2009
Contact: Charles Suggs, charles@climategroundzero.org 304-854-7372
PETTRY BOTTOM, W.Va.—The two Edwight tree sitters, Nick Stocks and Laura Steepleton, came down from their 80-foot tulip poplar perches this afternoon and were taken into State Police custody. They have been preventing more blasting from rocking the homes of Pettry Bottom because harmful government inaction has failed to do so. They have both been charged with trespass, obstruction and littering, and their bail has been set at $25,000 each. For the past five days, they endured psychological torture, verbal assault and threats.
Anonymous eyewitnesses said the Massey-hired security guards were telling the treesitters they were going to rape and kill the treesitters. On Sunday night, the guards put a running chainsaw to both trees, cutting them a little bit. The guards told Steepleton today that they were going to get them out of the tree no matter what because Massey ordered them to.
The State Police were absent from the scene from the time the two ground support were first arrested last Tuesday until Stocks came down today, except for their second arrest on Wednesday. They were also gone while arborists were cutting the trees around Steepleton and as she descended.
Soon after his conversation with Webb, Sgt. Smith had to return to the tree sit due to reports of someone felling the trees with a chainsaw while Steepleton’s whereabouts were unknown. What happened after this is unclear except that both Stocks and Steepleton were arrested.
The guards felled trees around Laura and were going to make Stocks’ tree fall into hers. At this point, Laura decided to come down because, as she said, “These people are nuts.”
Bo Webb of Naoma spoke with Sgt. Smith of the State Police and offered to stand at the base of Steepleton’s tree tonight to protect her from the guards, but Smith said he’d have to arrest Webb if Webb went up to the sit. “I told him he’s arresting the wrong people. I think Manchin is behind this, he’s the Commander in Chief of the West Virginia State Police,” Webb said.
“It’s like nobody wants to listen to the people from the community,” Carol Beckner of Pettry Bottom told Jessica Lilly of West Virginia Public Radio. “If maybe people from the outside comes in and does something maybe they’ll start listening to somebody.
“They have to start listening to somebody.”
“The people of Pettry Bottom and Clays Branch are living below a land slide waiting to happen and the only barrier between fallen trees, mud, boulders and water and the Pettry Bottom community is a wooden stake and tarp fence. The DEP needs to step in and protect its citizens – not Massey Energy,” Steepleton said. “Stop the blasting above Petty Bottom, and end mountaintop removal.”
“They are blasting on the ridge that connects to the structure of the dam [above Marsh Fork Elementary],” Ed Wiley of Rock Creek said. “Massey is recklessly endangering those kids, and the folks at Pettry Bottom. I’m glad those tree sitters are getting in their way.”
Steepleton and Stocks climbed 80 feet up a pair of tulip poplars, within 300 feet of blasting and 30 feet of the Massey Energy Edwight Surface Mine. They unfurled two banners from their treetop platforms: “Stop Mountain Top Removal” and “DEP – Don’t Expect Protection”. Blasting is prohibited when people are within such proximity, as Mining Safety and Health Administration regulations require that people not be hurt in the course of blasting and that non-blasting employees all be cleared from the area.
This was the third protest in two weeks to focus attention on the WV Department of Environmental Protection and their embattled secretary, Randy Huffman. It also follows days after the leak of DEP biologist Doug Wood’s memo on the scale of environmental degradation caused by mountaintop removal, directly contradicting Huffman’s statements at a senate hearing last June.
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Progress Miner,
what are you talking about?
others disturbed by my actions? prove it. name the names. put up or shut up. And any of the 14 reading this can get in touch with me and tell me what they think.
don’t tell me how to dialogue, sir. You and your ilk have attempted to defined the terms of “civil” dialogue on this issue and y’alls idea of that is to threaten, harass, intimidate and harangue. I am following y’alls lead and giving it back. Seems you can’t take it.
did you see fear in my eyes on June 18th? No you did not. Not even when 2 of your good christian buddies threatened to beat my ass (their words). And you saw nothing in my eyes but sadness when i attempted a reasonable conversation with your fellow miners and the best those good Christians could come up with was to question my sexuality in the most crude terms possible.
Your call for respect will be honored sir, when you and your comrades give it. Did I call any of the men on the site that day crude names. No I did not. And have I taken an arguementative tone on this discussion board? Yes. That’s the tone set by the pro-MTR crowd and that is the tone set by your Republican overlords in Talk Radio and on Fox News. Y’all are the ones who called the tune and now you want to whine about how some of us are dancin’ to it? Gimme a break.
you, sir, are a liar (with all due respect) and your attempts to paint me as some sort of coward are pathetic. your attempts at division are pathetic. Just like watcher’s attempts to instill fear are pathetic.
And don’t accuse me of dissing your God. I have said nothing here about your religion. I have, however, dissed the so called watcher and his god – Mammon. And I will continue to diss all who bow before and worship profit and money over people and the planet. If you are so concerned with the message of Jesus Christ than you should spend more time dealing with your own house (the Church) and the hypocrites who spew hate in his name and less about trying to get the rest of us to believe the same as you.
Speaking of God, since you brought Him up, why don’t you take a moment and reflect on how mountaintop removal fits into God’s mandate to be a good steward of his creation. And please reflect on how lying about someone’s intents and actions fit into Jesus’s mandate to love thy neighbor as thy self.
If i got under your skin…well Good Job me. NO sir you didn’t not speak crudely or in any way towards me. I thank you for that. I do not understand if you are so bothered why do you use the terms that you do. Oh and btw being a steward of His creation, I’m just waiting on the New Earth, you understand right? Conviction rules.
Hey progress miner , this site used to be teaming with support for their side, wonder what happened? Y’all have a great day…..Watcher.
I dunno watcher.. they wanted our attention and there getting it…strange….
you boys have fun pattin’ yourselves on the back.
’cause the fear and division you have sown is so real and soul-crushing this website is about to crash.
please have mercy, declare victory and ease off. I’m used to questioning my own actions, but now i am questioning my very existence! please, stop, one more made up comment about cowardice, cursing or the IRS and my brain is going to melt.
your persistant internet attacks, coupled with the Massey lawsuit, i’m doomed, done, fried, toast. i quit, y’all win, the power of your words, logical arguements and outright lies and threats have made me see the light.
please, i have to go to the shrink now.
ps. if this missave is sorta confusing, there is a word in the dictionary that starts with s and ends with m that you might want to look up. No, not S and M, get your mind out of the gutter, get a grip man!
I know what it is, it is your ineligible mind getting at you. You are so mad because there is someone that has a tendency to pay you attention. Did you not get much through years? Look Mr. Johnson I really think your a nice guy. I thought that from day one at the mines. If it does bother you that I have been respectful, well you just have to get over it. Maybe my parents did something you have been ranting about>>>TEACH me something. Oh and God commands me to be respectful. So yeah you are right, if God be for us, who can be against us? So maybe I do win. I don’t take the accolades, I cast my crown to Jesus. Tell the farmer and Lynn I say hello.
Everybody gets upset and sometimes uses language to express the strength of the frustration. If you are so up and righteous, you know that forgiveness is the only way to the Kingdom, and you could just look over the momentary passion and see how frustrating it is for us to have all this Misinformation repeated over and over. Don’t let the coal companies fool you into believing their campaign is gospel. How can a God Fearing person desecrate the earth in such a horrible manner? how could a God Fearing person destroy the drinking water of his own people?
Jesus said that the lofty speech isn’t pleasing to God, so don’t think that just by eliminating profane language while destroying the garden is putting you in favor with the Maker. If you listen closely, you will hear God telling you what to do, to quit fighting, to love one another and to take care of each other– I think that means not polluting the water downstream, not killing all the trees and micro=organisms in the soil, you know, just for cash.
And some people will have to be further on the margin than others, so they will be under more pressure and some people may talk– I assure you the talk about Jesus wasn’t all good either, but that didn’t make him wrong.
even good logic on faulty premises is unsound; try to recenter your thinking from the unhewn stone and see that God is here, in these hills and He will guide us, if we listen, and wants us to prosper, but not at the desecration of our gifts… there will be better jobs ahead, fear not, hold onto your Maker and please stop fighting us, we are trying to help you.
Coal is over, it’s just a matter of time now. Start looking for a better, more sustainable lifestyle, and drink clean water.
Sarah……..Thanks but no thanks, we don’t want nor need your help , but you might tell our elderly on fixed incomes a better more sustainable way of paying the extra $1,700.00 a year just to live under Mr. Obama’s Crap & Tax plan
Finally! Group to lose it’s 501(c) tax exempt status for unlawful act’s. Acorn going down, look out Climate Ground Zero.
Finaly Massey to sue their sorry butts into financial oblivion. GO Massey!!