Contact: Mike Roselle (304 854 1852), Charles Suggs (304 854 7372), news@climategroundzero.org
Mike Roselle, Joe Hamsher, and Tom Smyth walk with purpose towards the Marfork Coal Company office this morning. The three activists peacefully entered the office to deliver a citizen's arrest warrant for Christopher Blanchard and Don Blankenship, the CEOs of Marfork and Massey, who are responsible for the destruction of Coal River Mountain and for numerous violations on their sites. Photo by Cheshire/Climate Ground Zero
Pettus, W.Va.– Three occupied Massey Energy subsidiary Marfork Coal Company, Inc.’s main office this morning at eight. The protestors plan to present a citizen’s arrest warrant and list of violations on the Marfork processing plant, Bee Tree Surface Mine and Brushy Fork sludge impoundment to company president Christopher Blanchard and Massey CEO Don Blankenship.
The above image shows two areas, in purple, where Massey Energy is blasting dangerously close to the Brushy Fork Impoundment and multiple gas wells. The tree sit was right next to the #2 Haul Road. Click the image for a larger version.
Marfork Coal Co. has started work on the Bee Tree Surface Mine, and is blasting within 1,000 feet of the impoundment. The blasting threatens to decrease the stability of the Brushy Fork dam, which sits above a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines.
Just last week, the W. Va. Department of Environmental Protection issued a violation on the impoundment for failing to meet an engineering safety factor. This measurement determines how much force a structure can withstand beyond the amount that is expected to be exerted upon it. At the time of the issuance, the dam could withstand thirty percent additional force, rather than the fifty percent mandated by law.
The WVDEP was acting under a ten-day notice issued to them by the federal Office of Surface Mining.
“What’s sad is that the federal government has to go in,” said Joseph Hamsher of Charleston, W.Va., one of the protestors occupying the office. “You just know that someone up the road is telling the West Virginia DEP not to give Massey any more violations.”
If the Brushy Fork impoundment breaks, a 38.49-foot wall of water will arrive in Sylvester, a town 4.8 miles downriver, within 36 minutes. By Massey Energy’s own estimates, the disaster would kill 998 people.
“I won’t stop breaking the law until they do,” said Mike Roselle, who along with Hamsher and Tom Smyth, intends to stay in the office until Marfork Coal Co. suspends blasting operations.
Addendum
Marfork Coal Company Violations on Coal River Mountain
Drainage violations on Marfork Coal Co.’s Brushy Fork impoundment, processing plant & refuse pile
Wow, what a sitcom, Gomer at the door shouting “CITIZENS ARREST! CITIZENS ARREST! Well at least he found his spine and maybe now do some time.
What a joke….citizens arrest! I guess its to cold for them to hang out in trees…so they go directly to the office of the “culprits”. Way to get your point across. I heard they were drug out by the chains they used to strap themselves to the chairs. By the way chaining yourselves to a chair setting in an office was a good idea. Good Job!!
I REALLY try to stay away from this website, but you stupid assholes just won’t allow me too! I’ll address the WVDEP violation first… It is for the UPSTREAM side of the impoundment meaning that it has nothing to do with the downstream (dam) side of the impoundment! This violation is because of a few rocks and a little bit of dirt that went over the edge of the strip bench when a road was being built. It all comes down to the dirt/rocks not being compacted in this area, which is VERY small! So again, the downstream side or dam side of the impoundment is fine and meets all safety requirements. The sides are fine and meet all safety requirements. The back of the impoundment is fine except for a small area of non compacted dirt/rock which just has to be compacted.
It is unbelievable that someone as articulate as “you’ll never leave brushy alive” could have no common sense about how to live on this planet. It would really serve you to shift your perspective so that you may create a planet upon which your childeren can live. You must look at reality. MTR is destroying Gods creation for the desires of the ego. This is not what Jesus taught. Please review your sunday school lessons. It is really time to allow yourself to not be co-opted by selfish, greedy forces and job black-mail.; To free yourself and open up to the amazing opportunities whic are availible, once you have done so.
I am so proud of y’all!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although I am too far away to be of any help y’all are in my prayers and I will pray that the pro-coal side’s eyes open instead of having blinders on them.
Dear David, do you even live in WV??? How can my children succeed in life if I have no money to pay for their college or their daily needs??? Your the one that needs to look at reality!!! The reality that WV is about coal mining and if we don’t have coal, then just wipe us off the map and let us all sign up for welfare!!! MTR isn’t done just for the hell of it, it is done because room and pillar mining just isn’t economical or safe to do at that site. Jesus also taught us to love thy neighbor, didn’t he??? The good Lord gave us the knowledge to do MTR, so we are gonna do it. We aren’t hurting anyone, the claims that CGZ and other enviro-freek groups make are completely false. If we were really in that bad of violation of the law, the EPA would shut us down immediately!!! And the next thing, job black mail and greedy forces…. a group by the name of Climate Ground Zero meets this criteria! By bringing in college students promising to use government grants to pay for their college if they come and protest. Not mentioning that they will have to sit in trees for days at a time, and then go to jail and wait for them to come up with the bail money to get them out. I work for Massey Energy as a choice just as every other Massey member does! We all have a job that we know how to do very well. We pride ourselves in working hard and getting the job done quickly, safely, and eco-friendly. Every job cannot be done 100% eco-friendly because humans do make mistakes, but 99.9% of the time it is done eco-friendly. And where the hell are these green jobs that you all claim are out there??? I really don’t want to move to Denmark to work on a windmill farm, to tell ya the truth I have no desire to work with windmills! The line has been drawn and you all are flirting dangerously close to coming over it. Your messing with our livelihoods and our families well-being.
This is for You’ll Never Leave Brushy Alive – Wow. To claim that you are destroying mountains and valleys “…In an eco-friendly manner..” and then go on to make bald threats – I hope you can look at yourself in the mirror in the morning. I DON’T live in WV, I live in Colorado, and I tell you we would never stand to have this kind of destruction of our natural beauty happen here. We have way more balls than that, and I’m sorry you are so short-sighted as to believe that coal is the only way to make a livelihood. You are destroying that which sustains us all – the Earth. First by blowing up mountains to get the coal, then by burning it. Crazy.
David, have you invested in these amazing oppurtunities? If so I beg you bring me an application, if not, the statement at most is hippocritical. I say sit in Whitesville, with a job fair sign for windmills, amazing oppurtunities await, apply here.I’ll stop by on my way home from work tomorrow, along with a few hundred others. This job can accommodate, is that correct? Sunday school lessons are important, like “set no other gods before me.” I know you will come back with the same ‘ol rhetorical answer, and I won’t bother quoting it. If you can’t handle what we do to this Earth, then you won’t like what happens when we inherit the New Earth.
Progress, we should sit down sometime and collaborate on making some of these green jobs a reality. You are right in that they aren’t in southern West Virginia now – but they never will be if we don’t work for them. I’m in Whitesville quite often.
Andrew, I am in Whitesville every day. My question is with such a drive that you have, why do you say never will? West Virginians are so misrepresented by this site. We are a hard working, driven, high spirited people. To attack us in such a way that rips us of what we represent; that no matter what person (West Virginian or not) says this country has called upon OUR PEOPLE in perilous times. We are a people set above the rest, and I’m not degrading any other American, coal kept this country safe in the WW’s, MTR was set in place after the Korean and during Vietnam to again provide for this country when in need. As we go into the next decade this state once again is in better economical stableness than every other state except for ONE! If were so bad, Mike Roselle, Judy Bonds, Antrim Caskey, Mr. Nelson, Charles Suggs and scores more, MUST provide a more factual and noble response than “the better jobs are in place”. It’s kind of saying I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. You see what I am waiting on is the ones who go thru extreme measures such as Charles Suggs, Lynn Stone,and the two other women who climbed the dragline, who are willing to STOP something, give a higher effort of trying to start something. My Dad has always told me, quiting is easy, it shows the true grit of a person when they can start ,or revive something. May seem simple, but it’s hard.
I said never will, if we don’t work for them – it won’t happen by itself. There are folks working for them, but the more there are, the better. There may be instances on this site, and others, in which West Virginians or Appalachians have been misrepresented, but I’d say that this site, and the campaign it represents targets those forces that have kept Appalachians down. And you are right, I have never met more hard working, driven, and innovative people than the ones I’ve met who are putting their heads together to lay the foundations of a more prosperous Appalachia. And you are right here too – between the sacrifices made under the coal industry and the fact that WV has higher rates of military service per capita than any other state – WV has given more than its share to the nation – you should not need to give up your land for the wealth of others.
Just because coal powered the US through both world wars doesn’t mean it should power the future.
Better jobs are to be worked for. We’ll eat the hamburger we make when its made, and the more people who pitch in on making it, the sooner we will have it. That may be a silly metaphor (you used it better) but I think you get what I’m saying.
On those who try to stop something – I think it takes folks like them to stir things up enough to create a starting point for the conversation on “what next?” You’re right, it’s hard, but it’s what we’ve got to be asking – what next?
Andew, well said, very well. Here is the thing, so many West Virginians do not like that question “what’s next?’” So many people forget what got “them” there and become unappreciative in the same bit. You see we never do know what’s next, when you have someone saying we don’t need you because we have the oppurtunity for “this”, whatever it may be. We West Virginians have always put up, so we don’t need to have a wait and see agenda from others. We West Virginians, I will say expect from those with the “New Ways” attitude to well in a nice manner, do what we have the history of doing, put up or shut up. Dow Chemical an out of state company in which this site and its members will not attack had said in taking over Union Carbide that they will improve on the history and the relations the company has had with WV, you want to attack Massey for being an out of state company, check out what Dow Chemical has done to improve. Let me know how you feel when you look at those facts.
To one planet: I am glad to see that you think we need help with how we run our state! I am glad to see that you are such an expert on how we mine coal and our reclaimation work. Oh yeah, no one probably mentioned the reclaimation work to ya, but that is nothing new! Do you burn coal for power??? I don’t know and I don’t really give a damn. So what’s up with the whole global warming thing now??? They figured out that it was complete bullshit and are trying to call it climate change now or what??? You need to stay with the issues that affect your state, and stay the hell out of our business!!! Have a nice day!!!
….still waiting.