I went to college on the coast of North Carolina – a medium sized school called UNC Wilmington. During my first semester there, I realized that my environmental-minded thinking was definitely in the minority. There was negligible activism, no environmental club, and the dorms barely even recycled. Not really knowing how to change things, I just dealt with the unfortunate circumstance handed to me by choosing this school and focused on my environmental science major. In the spring of my junior year, I was phonebanked by someone with Greenpeace (how did they have my number? that’s a... (continue reading)

It’s only Tuesday and it has already been quite a busy week for the notorious Massey Energy and the anti-mountaintop removal community. Monday morning, two activists blockaded the road leading to Massey Energy’s Regional Headquarters in Boone County, West Virginia. EmmaKate Martin, 18, suspended herself on a platform between three interlocking poles 30 feet above the road while Ben Bryant, 23, locked himself to the base of one pole. A banner was hung from the platform that read “Massey: Profit over People & Mountains: Fight Back!” Bryant and Martin being removed... (continue reading)

For the first time in quite a while, I actually have good news related to the mountaintop removal fight to share with you! I am very happy to report that Governor Manchin announced on April 30th that the kids who attend Marsh Fork Elemenatary are going to get a new school. I’ve written about Marsh Fork before and the fact that it’s sitting under a slurry dam that contains bil lions of gallons of toxic sludge and next to a polluting coal processing plant (both of which are operated by Massey Energy). Many of the kids who attend this school have respiratory-related health problems... (continue reading)

Are you tired of reading my posts about how devastating mountaintop removal (MTR) mining is to the environment and communities throughout Appalachia? If MTR makes you angry and you’re ready to do something about it, join RAN, Coal River Mountain Watch, Climate Ground Zero, and lots of other great groups in the fight to end funding this destructive practice. Providing only 7 percent of the nation’s coal, mountaintop removal (MTR) mining is devastating the historic Appalachian region of the U.S. JP Morgan Chase is bankrolling the biggest coal companies in the MTR business. MTR poisons... (continue reading)

Just a few weeks ago, we caught a glimpse at how disastrous coal mining can be with the recent tragedy at Montcoal, a mining site operated by Massey Energy. I thought this would be a good opportunity to look at take a look at Massey’s other coal extraction processes and see if they are any safer. The Montcoal site is not a mountaintop removal mine. It is an underground coal mine, but there is some speculation that the explosion could have occurred due to its proximity to Massey’s mountaintop removal mines. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! wrote a great piece on the tragedy that I encourage... (continue reading)

Monday afternoon at about 3PM, a huge explosion ripped through an underground coal mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, killing at least 25 miners. This is the highest mining accident death toll since 1984, when a fire killed 27 workers in a mine in Orangeville, Utah. Four miners are still missing, but search efforts got postponed today due to the lethal buildup of poisonous gases in the mining chambers and the danger that poses to search parties. The coverage from this tragedy is just heartbreaking. The reports I have read mention miners who are as young as I am, as well as miners who were just... (continue reading)

I’ll tell you what’s been going on with mountaintop removal lately – it’s getting TONS of media attention about how terrible it is due to the hard work of some amazing activists. Let me fill you in! Action at the EPA On March 18th, RAN activists erected two tripods on the lawn of the EPA to call on administrator Lisa Jackson to end mountaintop removal, the destruction of mountains, and communities in Appalachia. Two activists were sitting in the tops of the tripods for 32 hours and gained a lot of great attention. Lisa Jackson herself even tweeted about what was going... (continue reading)

It’s March 3rd! You know what that means? That means that all the fines I accrued from participating in a direct action last June are due to the West Virginia magistrate… and then I’m free! I feel like this is a good time to reflect on that action, as it was a pretty amazing one. Very early in the morning on June 18th, 2009, fourteen activists, including myself, entered Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal mining site near Twilight, West Virginia. We had one goal in sight: to stop all mountaintop removal operations on that site for as long as possible. The trek onto the site was... (continue reading)

This morning in Pettus, West Virginia, three activists entered Marfork Coal Company’s office to deliver a citizen’s arrest warrant to Christopher Blanchard, the company’s president and Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy. Marfork Coal Company is a subsidiary of Massey Energy – the coal company responsible for blowing up dozens of mountaintops throughout Appalachia. The activists issued their citizen’s arrest warrant which, in short, stated that these mountaintop removal operations are endangering people’s lives by setting off explosives in close proximity to homes and by... (continue reading)

For the past four days, three amazing activists have been hanging out in trees near Massey Energy’s Bee Tree Strip Mine. With the treesitters so close to the mine site, blasting is illegal, therefore stopped. The activists – David Aaron Smith, 23, Amber Nitchman, 19 and Eric Blevins, 28, say they will stay in the trees as long as they can or until blasting on Coal River Mountain is stopped. This map shows where the treesitters are and the close proximity of the Bee Tree Mine to the Brushy Fork Impoundment – which currently holds 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal waste. Sounds... (continue reading)