Nonviolent Intervention shuts down
largest surface coal mine in
Appalachia. 20 Arrests
Update: 10 still jailed awaiting $25,000 bond each; 10 released with 9 accepting plea: $500 fine and 1 year probation. Next court date Aug. 7.
By Clare Hanrahan
It was a dramatic scene Saturday, July 28, near the now abandoned community
of Hagertown in a remote area of Lincoln County in southern West Virginia. Just after 1 p.m. a fifteen vehicle caravan
pulled up at the entrance of Patriot Coal’s Hobet Mine No. 45. Fifty mountain
defenders quickly exited the cars,
taking by surprise the lone woman worker standing outside the guard shack at
one of the largest mountain-top removal coal mining operations in Appalachia.
The nonviolent intervention action was coordinated by the grassroots
organization
R.A.M.P.S.—Radical
Action for Mountain People’s Survival.
As caravan vehicles pulled away, we scrambled into a most desolate scene. Scraped
and sterile earth, piles of rocky rubble as far as the eyes could see, and
slurries of slate grey slippery mud beneath our feet.
“It’s just horrible. It’s sacrilegious. It’s like the end of the world,”
said Professor Steve Norris, a peace studies teacher at Warren Wilson college
in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Miles and
miles of rocks and mud are all that remains where ancient mountains and valleys
once supported a richly biodiverse ecosphere. “We were in a sacrifice zone,”
Norris later said, tearfully recalling the experience.
On distant barren high ridges massive machines dumped pulverized mountain
rock to fill once lush valleys in an ecological assault recently authorized by
Obama’s EPA for the Corridor G mining complex, of which the Hobet mine is a
part. Cloudy contaminated mine drainage
water, perhaps displaced from a woodland creek, snaked through piles of rubble
devoid of life, seemingly seeking its now-buried stream bed. Such mining operations contaminate surface
water for hundreds of years.
A Google Earth search for Spurlocksville, West Virginia
will reveal the scene of destruction, but until one stands in the midst of the
devastation, the horror of the massive crime cannot be fully realized.
As we moved further into the dead zone we crossed the paths of coal miners operating
the mountain demolishing Caterpillar- made machines. They revved up the motors
and blared their horns. Disciplined and determined, the well-prepared direct action groups
dispersed over the acres of devastation.
I and two other colleagues, Steve Norris and Coleman Smith, who traveled
from Asheville, North Carolina, accompanied the action groups on site to
observe and record.
 |
| Photo courtesy of R.A.M.P.S. |
As mine site security vehicles alerted to our presence rushed to the scene,
ten men and women climbed onto one of the huge mountain destroying rock machines
and locked down, some encasing their arms in pipes to hinder their removal. They
affixed banners, one declaring: “Restore our Mountains. Reemploy our Miners.”
“Coal companies must employ their surface mine workers in reclaiming all
disturbed land to the highest standards,” said R.A.M.P.S. spokesperson Mathew
Louis-Rosenberg. “Instead of arguing about the ‘war on coal,’ political leaders
should immediately allocate funds to retrain and re-employ laid off miners to
secure a healthy future for the families of this region.”
Another banner, “Coal Leaves, Cancer
Stays,” warned of the toxic legacy of this extractive industry for generations
to come in the lives and homeland of the workers and their families.
The rock machine operator watched the scene from his high cab as several mine
officials arrived in white Cherokee Sport 4x4 vehicles. One filmed with a video
camera, while others used radios, presumably
to alert police. Later a truck arrived with wheel chucks to keep the massive
machine from rolling forward on the activists who stood nearby. Interactions
between these workers and the occupying mountain defenders were civil and calm.
“Ya’ll should just turn back,” one worker advised. “Once you’re under arrest
you will be moved.”
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| Noah, Kris & Van at Action Camp. "More Coffee?" |
Street Medics, many from
The Katuah Medics team were on site, and
photographers and reporters were present in addition to trained legal
observers.
 |
| Action training: Ryan Halas straddles the line |
|
UNCA student Ryan Halas, serving as a runner took film and video
off the scene before police arrived and others waited to serve as police
liaisons and to provide on the ground support for locked down mountain
defenders.
Several activists standing near the machines held aloft a banner with the
simple message: STOP! Another group linked arms and stretched
themselves across a wide and flat expanse between an earthen wall, where multiple
layers of narrow coal seams were visible, and on the other side the rubble of
boulders and slurry mud. Meanwhile, young men and women, faces masked by
bandanas, began lifting or rolling heavy boulders across the path of coal
extraction machines and other official vehicles parked further up the road in
the vast wasteland.
Back near the mine entrance, where a small stand of young trees remained,
Asheville resident Bryan Garcia, geared up with safety equipment, climbed a
tree and released a banner while supporters kept watch at the base of the trunk.
This mine site occupation is a bold example of a
nonviolent intervention designed to bring attention to and hasten the end of
mountain-top removal coal mining operations.
Min
ing Operations were shut down for over 3
hours.
Working at full capability, the Hobet 45 mine complex could extract nearly
four million tons of thermal coal each year. Much of it is destined for
overseas markets. Patriot Coal controls as much as 1.8 billion tons of coal
reserves, and is currently under Chapter
11 bankruptcy procedures with possibility that union contracts and pensions
could be jeopardized.
The risks of our mere presence on site were
uncertain, but the risks of remaining after the police arrived were greater.
And the risks of doing nothing in the face of this corporate crime carry the
highest risks for all future generations.
Legal
briefings during several days of preparations at the Mountain Mobilization
Action Camp had warned of possible consequences. These ranged from a simple
cite and release with fine and court costs, to multiple charges including
criminal conspiracy, trespass, obstruction, and even domestic terrorism. Earlier
interventions by R.A.M.P.S. activists had a wide range of consequences
including a sixty-day jail sentence and a civil suit from the St. Louis based
Patriot Coal enterprise for interrupting their deadly work.
 |
| Larry Gibson and others at the rally |
Excellent trainings in nonviolent action strategies and cultural sensitivity
were offered to participants prior to the Saturday events. The
Seeds of PeaceCollective mobile kitchen provided nutritious meals and Asheville activist Coleman Smith
of the New South Network of War Resisters provided banner and sign making
guidance and materials for the messaging at a public rally held Saturday in Kanawha State Forest. That gathering
“was swarmed with State Police and protesting miners,” according to reporter
C.V. Moore, writing in The
Register-Herald.
Back in Hagersville near the Hobet mine site,
that same reporter interviewed unemployed miner Allen Hager: “Don’t come
from other states and tell us how to work,” he told the reporter. “If the State
Police weren’t here, we’d be knocking heads. Get the police out of here and
we’ll take care of it.”
Sometime after 2 p.m. fifteen West Virginia
State police and local sheriff vehicles drove up into the mine in a slow
moving, single file caravan. The time for decision was at hand.
About thirty persons opted to leave when the
police moved in to enforce the mine operators’ trespass complaint. Twenty
others remained on site. We practiced slow compliance as we walked back past
the incoming line of police vehicles to the mine entrance road.
Assembled at the un-gated entrance, and kept
back by a few West Virginia State Police, a dozen or so nearby residents and off-duty
miners stood ready to defend their jobs and coal-mining way of life. In these mountain communities that have
endured a century of denigration and exploitation, work is scarce and a
hard-scrabble existence is a common struggle. Outsiders are suspect even in the
best of circumstances in this clannish culture where many wear t-shirts with
the simple word COAL in large print to display their deep allegiance.
As State police cautioned us to “keep
moving” we walked through a gauntlet of hostile miners with desperate pleas
such as "If you shut the mines, how
will I feed my three children?" and shouts of “Where are you from?” and
“Go Home!” These were interspersed with epithets
and threats to “get out” as we made our way through. There were rumors that
some miners revving up a chain saw had threatened our friend Bryan who was
still holding his place high up in the tree top as we passed.
One young man in our group endured searing invective,
with shouts of “queer” and “fagot” from
the locals. He held his head high and with quiet dignity kept walking. “I grew up in a small town,” he told me as I
moved to walk along side him through the gauntlet. “If we were somewhere else,
I might have a different reaction,” he said while keeping to the nonviolent
discipline as we had all agreed.
Outside the mine site we gathered on a narrow slope on the side of Mud River
road, while locals spread the word throughout nearby households that we were there.
With the slate-colored mud of a pulverized
mountain still clinging to my shoes, my
eyes irritated with gritty dust and the acres and acres of desolation behind
us, I walked closely with others in the
afternoon heat. We soon recognized the
need to stay together, remain calm, set a pace that all could meet, and keep
mindful of the dangers we were facing.
The roadside vegetation was in high-summer beauty. Elderberries offered fruit laden umbels as we
passed; butterflies alighted on tall
blooming Joe Pye Weed; mullein reached shoulder high with tiny yellow flowers
still clinging to the stalks; jewelweed brightened the ditches and Queen Anne’s
lace graced the fields along with crimson clovers, wild cosmos and magic mugwort.
In many places, the road’s soft shoulder gave way, causing some to stumble and
sometimes fall, but we kept going.
With no
support vehicles anywhere in sight, we were forced to walk over four hours on
the narrow winding Mud River road as local miners and their allies raced up and
down, sometimes at very high speeds, in trucks, cars, motorcycles and
all-terrain vehicles screaming "Get out. Get out!"
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| Steve Norris along the Mud River road in W Va. Photo: Mark Haller |
We had no way of knowing when help would come. We were out of phone contact,
with minimal water. We were ordered off the land whenever and wherever we
stopped for an off the road shady rest. At the Spurlock post office, we found a
water spigot and very short respite under a shade tree until the owner arrived
accompanied by state police and other vehicles to move us along, albeit in a
much more polite manner than others had taken.
Some vehicles slowed down to pace us playing coal miners’ laments loudly
from trucks loaded with men, women and young children, some with feet dangling
off tailgates.
“Oh, you’re a bunch of wimps. Why don’t you walk faster,” one adolescent
shouted. There were various levels of vehemence. Not all were hostile. Two
young miners, on foot, walked alongside for a while in earnest conversation
with some of the younger women. They talked about the realities of their lives
and the desperate need for work.
When a car or truck pulled along side us, or we rounded a curve in the road
to see a cluster of men leaning on parked cars or sitting outside a local
church parking lot, we could not predict their reaction. Families had quickly
mobilized in this tight knit and impoverished mining community. Some locals who
slowed their vehicles to match our pace asked good questions: “How do you expect us to feed our
families if you shut down the mine?” and “where will you get the electricity
that you use without coal?” But it seemed neither prudent nor safe to engage in
these needed conversations along the busy road.
One fellow passed us numerous times speeding by on a motorcycle holding the
front wheel almost vertical as he drove alarmingly close to the walkers. Others
passed at high speed with horns blaring waving shirts with coal mining slogans and
flying the state flag.
“Single file, first grade style,” one driver taunted. We quickly picked up the refrain as we began
to move at a more unified pace, up hill and down, sharing water and
encouragement and our growing anxieties about what would become of us in that
mountain hollow if we didn’t get out before darkness fell.
About two hours into the walk, video journalist Flux
Rostrum of Mobile Broadcast News , who had been filming both at the mine site and the diversionary rally in Kanawha State Park, passed along the road and offered three or
four walkers a way out. Later reports showed that police had refused to allow support vehicles back in to pick up walkers, threatening arrest and impoundment of their vehicles if they were found on return to be 'harboring protestors."
At 6:30 p.m. other support vehicles finally
made it through to rescue us from the roadside gauntlet. This 63 year old
grandmother along with Steve Norris, a great grandfather, were urged to go as the situation was tense. We crowded together with the driver and four others in the compact car. Our
driver pulled away as quickly as she could, while an angry resident attempted
to block our departure on a dangerous curve.
As we left we were relieved to see a large van arrive to pick up our
fellow walkers. That vanload of weary walkers was further delayed another two hours by miners blocking the road, until state police intervened, according to reports on Mobile Broadcast News.
Twenty brave activists, including three from the Asheville area were taken into custody by West Va. State Police. Warren Wilson student Eva Westheimer,
Catherine-Ann MacDougal , and
Katuah Earth First! activist Bryan Garcia, are still being held in Western
Regional Jail in Barboursville, WV on an astoundingly high $25,000 bail each —
a combined $500,000. A steep price to buy back the freedom of these earth
warriors.
“We are here today to demand that the
government and coal industry end strip mining, repay their debt to Appalachia,
and secure a just transition for this region” said jailed activist Dustin
Steele of Matewan, West Virginia. Steele has told jail supporters that he was
taken into a room at the jail and beaten after his arrest, and others have
alleged they were roughly handled according to R.A.M.P.S. reports.
A bill has been introduced in the U.S. House with primary sponsor Rep.
Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) titled the
Appalachian Communities
Health Emergency (ACHE) Act. H.R. 5959 would place a moratorium on permitting
for mountaintop removal coal mining until health studies are conducted by the
Department of Health and Human Services.
“If we want strip mining to end and restoration work to begin; if we want a
post-coal
future that is more than devastated landscapes, rampant fracking, and deepening
poverty; if we want a healthy and whole Appalachia, we must escalate our
resistance,” and the R.A.M.P.S. campaign is showing the way.
For more information on jail support and updates go to the
R.A.M.P.S. Campaign website.
"The harsh repression of nonviolent civil resistance to the crime of mountaintop removal coal mining must be challenged," says Asheville area activist and Warren-Wilson college professor
Steve Norris, who hopes to see hundreds of supporters rally outside the jail house in support of the still-jailed mountain defenders.
Photo credits: Mountain Justice Photos,
Mark Haller
Clare Hanrahan, and R.A.M.P.S.
