February 5, 2010
Yesterday, Judge Irene Berger issued a continuance and delayed the federal hearing on Marfork Coal Company’s request for an injunction against activists associated with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice. Marfork, Massey’s subsidiary operator on Coal River Mountain, filed in federal court for $75,000 in damages and filed a restraining order against five of the seven people arrested during the recent tree-sit. Marfork is asking that the defendants be restrained from trespassing “or otherwise congregating” on any mining property associated with Massey Energy. In its complaint, Marfork cites Climate Ground Zero’s unwavering commitment to a sustained campaign of civil disobedience as a justification for the injunction, stating: “Defendants and their cohorts affiliated with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice, have represented by their words and proven through their actions that they will not be deterred by the imposition of a monetary fine or the prospect of serving a jail sentence for their criminal conduct, but will continue to trespass on mining properties operated by Marfork and other entities affiliated with A.T. Massey and Massey Energy.”
Judge Berger granted Marfork a temporary restraining order (TRO), and a hearing to extend the TRO into a full injunction was to be held yesterday, February 4, in Beckley. Earlier this week, we filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, as Marfork’s claim of $75,000 in damage contradicts their own public statement that the tree-sit did not stop operations at the Bee Tree Strip Mine. As tree-sitter Amber Nitchman put it: “It is ridiculous that Marfork claims that I did nothing to interfere with their work, and at the same time is asking me for $75,000 in damages. They should be the ones paying for damages. The citizens of Raleigh County deserve far more than $75,000 for the harm being done to their mountains, air, and water.”
The hearing has been continued until February 23, at 10 a.m., to give Marfork lawyers time to respond to our motion. Please stay tuned for any updates — we’ll be asking for as many people as possible to show up in federal court as we put Massey and mountaintop removal on trial.
Relevant court documents can be found here.
Tags: civil injunction, Climate Ground Zero, Federal hearing, Massey, tree sit
Does it really surprise you that Massey would want to try and extort money even after they claimed the “sitters” did not stop work? Of course not. They are greedy, murdering bastards. Sorry, for the language but it makes me so angry that they are being allowed to blatantly rip our state apart, poisoning our water (Blankeship himself admitted to violating EPA regulations), killing the very trees that give us air to breathe and putting hundreds of people in danger with is sloppy sludge “dam”. When you have the superintendent of Bluestone Dam saying that anytime you have a man made structure such as the dam there is a danger of it failing, then Massey wants us to believe that a pond that it’s banks are made of rock and dirt and is holding back 8 billion gallons of water, sludge, etc and has thousands of pounds of explosives going off within a mile of it’s location “will never fail”……????? WTF??? How can people be so blinded by his lies? Sorry, my grammar was probably horrible and I’m sure I had a run on sentence or two in there but I’m writing with emotion right now.
Rediculous ? Oh you mean like activists saying,we only want MTR stopped. Get real.