Massey Energy released a statement yesterday in response to the ongoing tree sit on Coal River Mountain. It’s partially posted here, but we’ve been unable to find the rest of it because it was not given directly to Climate Ground Zero. This is Climate Ground Zero’s response:
Massey Energy, in their recent statement, makes a number of allegations against Climate Ground Zero and our ongoing tree sit on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree Mine Site. We would like to address these allegations formally, in order to set the record straight and clarify some of Massey’s more misleading comments.
Massey has repeatedly and vociferously pointed out that certain individuals taking part in actions on Massey property are not from the state of West Virginia. Though the sitters are not West Virginian, neither is Massey. Massey Energy is an out-of-state mining and landowning company – falling in tradition to the absentee landholders that have plagued West Virginia for centuries. Landholding companies own 90 percent of Coal River Mountain and out-of-state landholding companies own 60 percent. In fact, out-of-state, usually absentee landholders like Rowland Landholding (Massey’s sometime landlord) hold the vast majority of southern West Virginia.
Coal River Mountain is by no means untouched; underground mining, contour mining and the huge toxic threat that is the Brushy Fork Impoundment have already disturbed it. However, taking down Coal River Mountain’s mountaintop would still be extremely detrimental to the watershed, because it would remove a large chunk of the land that currently absorbs rainfall and sequesters carbon. This would cause more flooding along the lines of what was seen along the Tug Fork last May, kill the Coal River with sediment and contribute to climate change.
According to the WV Office of Miners’ Health, Safety, and Training 2008 Annual Report and Directory of Mines, 25 % of the coal mined in West Virginia was mined by mountaintop removal, yet the industry routinely claims that only a tiny fraction of permits are “true mountaintop mining” permits. “For example, in the Mountaintop Mining Fact Book, the National Mining Association wrote “About 70 percent of U.S. coal production is mined using surface mining methods, including MTM.” Massey claims surface mining as mountaintop removal when it suits them, and then reverts to a highly specific definition in order to attempt to discredit those who oppose MTM.
Massey’s planned 6,000 acre mine on Coal River Mountain would destroy the entire mountain and create 17 valley fills. It falls clearly into the EPA’s definition of mountaintop mining from its 2003 Environmental Impact Statement: “’Mountaintop mining’ refers to coal mining by surface methods (e.g., contour mining, area mining, and mountaintop removal mining) in the steep terrain of the central Appalachian coalfields.” The tree sit is stopping a box cut, and whether it is on the top of the ridge, or just underneath, to claim that it is not a mountaintop removal operation is a deceptive splitting of hairs.
At the Twilight, Edwight and Kayford mine sites they destroyed multiple mountains, including Bailey Mountain, Cherry Pond Mountain and Kayford Mountain. The more mountains that are leveled by the mining companies in this valley, the more the valley and the communities in it are made into a drainage ditch; if it continues this way, they will have to rename the Mountain State.
According to Massey’s “Monitoring and Emergency Warning Plan and Procedures for the Brushy Fork Impoundment,” the Brushy Fork Impoundment is permitted to hold up to 8.2 billion gallons of sludge. That in itself is dangerous. Massey’s own filings with the WVDEP state that the children in the Head Start facility in Pettus, W.Va., would have no time to get out before they are hit by a 72 ft wall of toxic coal sludge. Five hours later, 25 miles away, the sludge will be 40 feet deep.
Massey accuses us of misrepresenting the volume of sludge in Brushy Fork, but their lower estimates on the volume of toxic sludge could be due to their recent drainage of the dam and the movement of the sludge to another location. Moving the sludge does little to address the real dangers of the matter of toxic coal waste storage.
The Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash spill was just over one billion gallons. The resulting flood covered 300 acres and contaminated tributaries of the Tennessee River with toxic coal ash waste. The full extent of the disaster’s ecological and health impacts are still unknown more than a year later. This is just one of many coal waste storage failures or spills in the past two decades. What’s more, despite their rejection of the figure, Massey offered no exact figure to counter 8.2 billion gallons because they’re just playing a semantics game.
As we have said before, when Massey leaves Coal River Mountain it will be so scarred and de-elevated that, in the end, the effects will be the same whether you checked the box on that permit or not. It’s mountaintop removal.
Massey stated that MTM/VF sites will be useable for wind farms. On the contrary, Gamesa, a major wind developer, said they won’t put a wind farm on Coal River Mountain after mining. After a mountain is strip-mined, the ground is too unstable to support wind turbines without making their foundations many more feet deep, which is prohibitively expensive.
The sitters acknowledge they are putting themselves at risk and believe it’s worth that risk to stop the greater crime of strip mining. The statement that the sitters are a threat to the safety of the miners and police is unsound. The protestors seek to make this situation as safe as possible for all individuals, being careful to avoid dropping things from their platforms or engaging in any other unsafe behavior. Alternatively, Massey actively seeks to endanger the sitters through their wanton use of noisemakers and lights; depriving the sitters of sleep and creating a more dangerous situation. The more significant danger at hand is Massey’s gambling with the lives of over 1,000 people living on, around and downstream of Coal River Mountain and the Brushy Fork Impoundment as well as the safety of their own workers.
It’s high time Massey stopped shifting the focus away from their destructive behavior and time for them to take responsibility for the danger they are creating in these communities. If Massey were truly held to the law just like the rest of us, they would have been locked up long ago.
We take accuracy and facts very seriously and believe the truth is on our side. It is never our intention to deceive anyone or to be untruthful. It’s time the EPA stopped beating around the facts and ban strip mining for good. No more SMCRA compromise, no more mountaintop removal.
Learn About Mountain Top Removal on Coal River Mountain
Take Massey’s advice and look at Google Earth. You’ll see strip mines all around Coal River Mountain. However, since Massey has been so quick and efficient at destroying mountains, Google Earth has not been able to keep up and doesn’t show all the destruction. First, turn on the mountaintop removal layer under “Global Awareness.” Second, download additional layers of mining permit boundaries here. Just take a spin around and see the reality of this horrible mining practice.
Learn about contour mining before you spew out lies. Coal River Mountain is not an MTR site. Sheesh with a prominent climatologist and a Kennedy, you would think their intelligence would wear off on a few here at CGZ. Much less cause you to tell the truth and report it as well.
When you call someone a liar in public, it is best for your own credibility (and common courtesy) to tell them and the world exactly what the lie was. So what was it?
Was it that Massey is based in Richmond, VA?
Or perhaps the fact that any type of surface mining will induce flooding? http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wcurrie/Publications/Simmons%20etal%202008%20EcolApplic%20-%20MineReclamation.pdf
Or maybe, CGZ was lying about the coal waste storage failures, like the one in Martin County in 2000, when another Massey impoundment, built similarly to Brushy Fork but about one-tenth the volume, broke into the underground mine complex below it and into the Big Sandy River. http://www.wise-uranium.org/mdafin.html
Maybe Google Earth is a hoax?
Hearing you say “Coal River Mountain is not an MTR site” reminds me of a Gunnery Sergeant saying “It’s not a ‘gun,’ it’s a ‘rifle.’” Yeah, okay. Last time I looked, Marsh Fork elementary was on the business end of it.
I refer you to Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
How can anyone say that this is not a MTR site? Open your eyes without blindfolds and see if there is a normal beautiful mountain here. No, there is not. Please understand that we are not terrible people trying to take jobs away from anyone just trying to protect the mountains, its people, and the environment.
y’all,
in this case, it just doesn’t matter what kind of extreme steep slope/mountaintop mining it is – auger, contour, “true MTR”, whatever…
blasting near a sludge pond is just plain stupid and wrong.
and Massey calling protesters out of state criminals? really? who’s got thousands of violations racked up?
lets see – CGZ, MJ, CRMW – coupla hundred violations (with lotsa people with multiple charges)
Massey – thousands and thousands of violations – clean water act violations, SMCRA violations, MSHA violations, the list goes on and on…
I mean, come on, if CEO’s were held to the same standard that activists are, they’d be puttin’ ol Donny B under the jail!
Johnny Reb, with all of his arrests 40 plus Mikey R. of climate ground zero should be put under the jail.
Yep, wish the government had done more on this issue so it hadn’t come to this. But honestly, I hope that the government passes not only soft-energy investment acts, to make the solar cell cheaper, etc., but programs to help coal miners transition to a new field of work. I’m sure they’ve done this in other industrialized countries. Severance pay, and a G.I. Bill of sorts, to say, learn about wind power maintanence or solar cell installation, or whatever other field the person wants to enter. I don’t think this kind of legislation is far off the radar. I wouldn’t think the government would just tell a soldier “We’ll, war is kind of outdated, so you’re fired without any compensation”. But its harder with energy, since energy is not just at the backbone of modern wars, but of modern existence. And who wouldn’t want to see the poor old coal miner–that stereotype of the sooty, coughing, sickened miner of the past 2+ centuries in particular, find a better line of work?
No one is faultless in this matter, neither side is, but for goodness sakes CGZ stop acting like you are so innocent. If you are so worried about the mountains and the people here then stop hiring these young college students except the 28 year old(he needs to get a real job) and hire in state people to do your dirty work. Where is good old Judy Bonds when these protest are going on? Why is she not out there lodged in a tree or your high and mighty man behind the scenes to help you guys out.
Yes, my husband job depends on the CONTOUR mining at Coal River, yes it does, it decides whether our son will go to college, have food on the table or be able to keep what we have got. So I am just like everyone else, back off and go protest against logging or gas drilling these two are no different.
MTR has been going on for YEARS! What makes the 09-10 years any different than the 90′s when this was going on. Get a job a real job and leave our men and women alone and let them do what they have been doing for years.
Don Blankenship is no different than Robert Kennedy, no he is not. He has worked for what he has and what he is doing and Robert Kennedy was borned into his, so he need to stick his nose in something else.
Everyone is to blame with the violations so don’t point fingers at just one person and stop blaming just one person.
Coal River Mountain has another name. I don’t know what it is. I know it has an inherent right to exist. Human appropriation of the land has been shown to be in error. To fix the error, I declare that the mountain being blasted by Massey Energy, this Mountain, has, as an entity as evident as that of the corporation, inherent rights. As a voice for future generations, I insist we must take correct action.
Raychel, no one is being “hired” by Climate Ground Zero. All participants in this campaign are unpaid volunteers, who are simply acting in alignment with their beliefs and convictions. I am very proud to call these treesitters my friends.
To those who want to criticize them, I would simply ask – Is there anything in your life that you feel so strongly about that you would take such a stand, and out your personal safety at risk for your beliefs? Many great people have gone into battle for the love of their country. These treesitters are showing their commitment and their personal integrity for their beliefs. Whether you agree with them or not, you shoudl respect their integrity in standing up for their beliefs.
I feel strong about…. working. I don’t even mean MTR, I think everyone should. You know what we do for a living, so post your job. I volunteer too. Ask the man at the gas station in the very polluting Saab. Never got his name, nice gent though.
Kilroy it was the second sentence.
Well Mr. Dave Cooper, I do stand up for my beliefs but I get shot down so many times so I have decided to stop being nice and get in with everyone else. I am a Christian a devoted Christian and I share my beliefs with whomever will listen and I am proud of what I belive in. I feel that as an American I can voice my belief on here and you guys will just have to deal with it. If you guys put up this website you knew that we were going to get on here and voice our opinion. I have posted several times on here and have in return gotten some nasty comments so what’s the difference? There is none!
Furthermore I am proud to call the WEST VIRGINIA COAL MINER MY FRIEND JUST THE SAME AS YOU ARE BY YOUR TREESITTERS!
These men are going to work in the mines everyday for the own commitment to take care of their family and feed them, send them to college and see that they have a bright future. They can do this if you will send your “treesitters” back to their OWN state and get out of ours and let our men get back to their way of life. Gov. Manchin knows this is West Virginia’s way of life it has always been. Where were you guys years ago when our men had to crawl around on their hands and knees in the deep mines this was dangerous more dangerous as stripmining?
To you Raychel,
Very well said. Very well said. I don’t know you, but continue speaking and standing. You are doing a good job.
Mr Cooper like’s to post like he in just an individual, but he is a organizer with O V E C. As for C G Z , this group is clearly organizing these illegal juants onto private property to protest. A good dose of I R S crackdown on these group’s practices will cause them to either come into compliance or lose their non profit (TAX FREE) status.
How about it Dave C G Z just got a meeting with the governor. Still say they have nothing with the illegal tree sit? Even Mr Ward over at the Gazette refers to them as”climate ground zero tree-sitters and their supporters”.
I worked at OVEC from 2002-2003. I have been a full time unpaid volunteer since June 2003. From 1981- 2001 I was a mechanical engineer in industry.
My OVEC employment could have been verified by Watcher with a 10 second google search, but – no its just easier – and more fun – to just post inaccurate comments on a website, isnt it?