 "Photo: 2010 The Picket")
David Cooper and Laura Steepleton, two members of the grassroots organization Mountain Justice, ended their trip through the northeast at Shepherd University last Thursday. The pair has been going state to state, visiting places like New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont, shedding light on the current mountaintop removal processes taking place in the Appalachians. Cooper, who is from Kentucky, quit his job at the Post-It company to take action and save the small mining communities, as well as some of the oldest mountains in this country. Steepleton, originally from Florida, came to West Virginia and quickly discovered that mountaintop removal was a serious issue. She then moved to Rock Creek, West Virginia and started working with Mountain Justice.
Mountaintop removal is a form of strip mining that removes the peak of the mountain and the entire coal seam. Mountains, in general, attract visitors because of their intense natural beauty. When the summit of a mountain is removed, the flat, barren peak looks much like a desert and has no wild life. The flat rock surface causes water to drain down the mountain, and because all of the trees have been removed as well, flash floods and rock slides are more common. The rocks that are removed from the top are dumped back on top of the mountain, causing the rock slides to be more dangerous. There have been several incidents where community members have died as a direct result of rockslides due to mountaintop removal. In the summer of 2004, a bulldozer knocked a rock off a mountain, which rolled down into the valley, crashing into the bedroom of a four year old boy. The little boy was crushed and died in the middle of the night. But, for mostly political reasons, things like this are not reported to the American public at large.
The coal companies yearly donate millions of dollars to political campaigns in the Appalachian region. The money helps the politicians get elected, judges included, meaning the laws meant to protect people and natural resources are overlooked to keep the money coming in. The money that the coal and energy companies are generating does not get put back into the local communities, and the local economies are some of the most depressed. According to Cooper, in Virginia, there are four counties that allow mountaintop removal; those four counties are the most economically depressed in that state.
Not only are the coal companies generating a lot of income for themselves, they are trying to take away property from those who still own the rights to land with mountains on it. One man in West Virginia had associates of the local coal company shoot at his home, attempt to hang his dog, and attempt to run his truck off the road, all because he would not sell his mountain, according to Cooper. “Open for business: the most terrible, awful, worst tagline ever, I am so glad they changed it back,” said Cooper of West Virginia, a tagline that was changed to help gain economic support for the state, an idea fully backed by the coal companies.
“The way we are consuming the resources of this country, buy, buy, buy to ‘support the economy’, is only going to make us use all the oil, coal, and minerals and leave nothing behind for the people of the future,” said Cooper. He continued to explain that not only are we using all of our natural resources, but we are also creating toxic waste that has already begun to negatively impact our environment. Slurry, the waste product that develops after the washing of coal, is toxic and needs to be stored. A common way to store slurry is in slurry lakes. These black lakes are full of chemicals, water, and mineral byproduct. Another way to store it is by injecting it into old, hollowed out coal mines. In 2000, a giant slurry lake in Kentucky was built overtop an old mine. When the lake was created, the energy company claimed that there was 100 feet between the bottom of the lake and the top of the hollow mine. There was actually only 15 feet between the two, and the lake broke down into the hollow mine, filling it with slurry and causing slurry to burst out of the mine openings all over trees, homes, and the local community. The energy company cleaned up the mess, but there was irrevocable damage to the land. The incident was not publicized because it was concurrent with the Bush-Gore election. In Sun Dial, West Virginia, the Marsh Forks School is built at the base of a mountain that hosts a slurry lake and coal mine. The dust of the coal mine is making children sick, and the danger of the slurry lake increases as each day passes.
Foundations of homes crack, windows break, and nails are shaken loose in roofs, causing water and rain damage inside the homes. All of this is due to the loud explosions that go on all day every day until a mountain is completely stripped of its peak, explained Steepleton. She also said that, “the cancer rate in Southern West Virginia in children is skyrocketing. Women on average lose ten years of their lives if they live in southern West Virginia.”
Steepleton is just one member of the growing movement against mountaintop removal that has been practicing passive protest. She participated in a nine day tree sit that postponed work on the mountain, costing the energy company millions, “We hit them hard, right in their pockets,” she said. She is not the only protestor out there. Currently, three Mountain Justice workers are in jail for sitting inside the energy office and issuing a citizen’s arrest. Joseph Hamsher, Mike Roselle, and Thomas Smyth are all being held on bail at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver, West Virginia.
Rachael Meads, the assistant director of the Shepherd University Student Center, organized the information session with Steepleton and Cooper to better educate her students, but she left the event open to the community. There were several community members present, including Eric Householder, who is running for office in Jefferson and Berkeley counties. Householder stated that he was glad to be there to “be informed”. Students who are interested in learning more about mountain top removal can visit ilovemountains.org or climategroundzero.org. The websites offer links to videos about the effects, information about protestors, and more.
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