Treesitters descend, threatened with chainsaw, $50,000 bail

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
31 August 2009

Contact: Charles Suggs, charles@climategroundzero.org 304-854-7372

PETTRY BOTTOM, W.Va.—The two Edwight tree sitters, Nick Stocks and Laura Steepleton, came down from their 80-foot tulip poplar perches this afternoon and were taken into State Police custody. They have been preventing more blasting from rocking the homes of Pettry Bottom because harmful government inaction has failed to do so. They have both been charged with trespass, obstruction and littering, and their bail has been set at $25,000 each. For the past five days, they endured psychological torture, verbal assault and threats.

Anonymous eyewitnesses said the Massey-hired security guards were telling the treesitters they were going to rape and kill the treesitters. On Sunday night, the guards put a running chainsaw to both trees, cutting them a little bit. The guards told Steepleton today that they were going to get them out of the tree no matter what because Massey ordered them to.

The State Police were absent from the scene from the time the two ground support were first arrested last Tuesday until Stocks came down today, except for their second arrest on Wednesday. They were also gone while arborists were cutting the trees around Steepleton and as she descended.

Soon after his conversation with Webb, Sgt. Smith had to return to the tree sit due to reports of someone felling the trees with a chainsaw while Steepleton’s whereabouts were unknown. What happened after this is unclear except that both Stocks and Steepleton were arrested.

The guards felled trees around Laura and were going to make Stocks’ tree fall into hers. At this point, Laura decided to come down because, as she said, “These people are nuts.”

Bo Webb of Naoma spoke with Sgt. Smith of the State Police and offered to stand at the base of Steepleton’s tree tonight to protect her from the guards, but Smith said he’d have to arrest Webb if Webb went up to the sit. “I told him he’s arresting the wrong people. I think Manchin is behind this, he’s the Commander in Chief of the West Virginia State Police,” Webb said.

“It’s like nobody wants to listen to the people from the community,” Carol Beckner of Pettry Bottom told Jessica Lilly of West Virginia Public Radio. “If maybe people from the outside comes in and does something maybe they’ll start listening to somebody.

“They have to start listening to somebody.”

“The people of Pettry Bottom and Clays Branch are living below a land slide waiting to happen and the only barrier between fallen trees, mud, boulders and water and the Pettry Bottom community is a wooden stake and tarp fence. The DEP needs to step in and protect its citizens – not Massey Energy,” Steepleton said. “Stop the blasting above Petty Bottom, and end mountaintop removal.”

“They are blasting on the ridge that connects to the structure of the dam [above Marsh Fork Elementary],” Ed Wiley of Rock Creek said. “Massey is recklessly endangering those kids, and the folks at Pettry Bottom. I’m glad those tree sitters are getting in their way.”

Steepleton and Stocks climbed 80 feet up a pair of tulip poplars, within 300 feet of blasting and 30 feet of the Massey Energy Edwight Surface Mine. They unfurled two banners from their treetop platforms: “Stop Mountain Top Removal” and “DEP – Don’t Expect Protection”. Blasting is prohibited when people are within such proximity, as Mining Safety and Health Administration regulations require that people not be hurt in the course of blasting and that non-blasting employees all be cleared from the area.

This was the third protest in two weeks to focus attention on the WV Department of Environmental Protection and their embattled secretary, Randy Huffman. It also follows days after the leak of DEP biologist Doug Wood’s memo on the scale of environmental degradation caused by mountaintop removal, directly contradicting Huffman’s statements at a senate hearing last June.

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CONCERT FUNDS REPLACEMENT OF TOXIC SCHOOL, PROMOTES CLEAN ENERGY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


TOXIC: Goals Coal plant, which contains a coal processing plant, a toxic waste dump and a massive mountaintop removal site, is a few hundred feet from the Marsh Fork Elementary School.  photograph (c) antrim caskey, 2008
TOXIC: Goals Coal plant, which contains a coal processing plant, a toxic waste dump and a massive mountaintop removal site, is a few hundred feet from the Marsh Fork Elementary School. photograph (c) antrim caskey, 2008


CONTACT:  MIKE O’CONNELL
919-218-5792 /  mikeoc@embarqmail.com

CONCERT FUNDS REPLACEMENT OF TOXIC SCHOOL, PROMOTES CLEAN ENERGY

Pittsboro, NC – Spending a summer weekend listening to music will help to ensure a safe school for hundreds of children.  How?  The Mountain Aid concert June 19-20, 2009 at Shakori Hills Farm in Chatham County, NC benefits Pennies of Promise, a grassroots campaign to construct a new building for Marsh Fork Elementary School in West Virginia.

Tucked into the heart of Appalachia, Marsh Fork Elementary sits in the shadow of a Mountain Top Removal coal mine, just 225 feet from the coal silo and 400 yards downstream from a leaking dam holding back nearly three billion gallons of toxic sludge.  Independent tests prove coal dust contaminates Marsh Fork Elementary, a direct threat to the children’s respiratory health.  Grandfather Ed Wiley began Pennies of Promise after his granddaughter got sick and West Virginia leaders told him the state could not afford a new school in a safer location.  The goal?  Raise eight million dollars and create a healthy future for the children of Appalachia. That’s where Mountain Aid comes in.

Grammy-winning singer and songwriter and West Virginia native Kathy Mattea will emcee and headline Mountain Aid.  “Hosting Mountain Aid is the best way I can think of to spend my 50th birthday.  I love these mountains, and to celebrate them and unite with others who love them, through music, is a great opportunity,” Mattea says.  Other performers include Ben Sollee, named one of NPR’s “Top Ten Unknown Artists” of the year for 2007; American music icon Donna the Buffalo; and roots rockers the Sim Redmond Band.

Advance tickets for Mountain Aid are on sale now for $22.50 ($30 at the gate).  On-site camping, food and craft vendors will be available.  For more details, visit  www.mtnaid.com.

Why hold Mountain Aid in North Carolina?  According to Duke Energy, North Carolina is the number two consumer of Mountain Top Removal coal in the country.  Additionally, a bill before North Carolina lawmakers would ban the use of Mountain Top Removal coal in the state.  Mountain Aid organizers hope both to raise funds for Pennies of Promise and to create awareness and support for clean energy.

Mountain Top Removal mining, the practice that causes the environmental harm in and around Marsh Fork Elementary, is the subject of the award-winning documentary, “Mountain Top Removal,” directed by Michael O’Connell.

“Mountain Top Removal” has played film festivals domestically and internationally and won the Reel Current award selected and presented by Vice President Al Gore at the 2008 Nashville Film Festival.  In conjunction with Mountain Aid, the film will screen on June 19 at 7:30 p.m. at the Carolina Theatre in Durham.

Mountain Aid thanks our generous sponsors Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Coal River Mountain Watch.

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Crackdown on Coal



Mike Roselle and James McGuinness shut down massey Energy on Cherry Pond mountain in southern West Virginia, February 25, 2009.  photograph (c) antrim caskey, 2009
Mike Roselle and James McGuinness shut down massey Energy on Cherry Pond mountain in southern West Virginia, February 25, 2009. photograph (c) antrim caskey, 2009



ROCK CREEK, WVa — The gig is up on mountaintop removal coal mining. The Obama administration has spoken out on the issue for the first time. Today, Lisa Jackson, director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), announced plans to place a hold on hundreds of permits for mountaintop removal coal mining, for review, to determine the “effects on streams and wetlands.”

It’s an excellent first step towards ending the appalling practice of obliterating the ancient, forested Appalachian mountains and running out her people who’ve lived and depended upon the bounty of these hills for centuries.

But what about the hundreds of permits that have been granted already?  It will take at least five years for active permits to run their course of destruction. With only 3% – 5% of post-mined lands reclaimed, cleaning up after Massey Energy in Appalachia is a shovel ready proposition.

Today’s announcement is certainly a harbinger for positive change but today’s announcement does not stop the three million pounds of explosives used in mountaintop removal operations every day in West Virginia. Today’s announcement does not stop the blasting on Cherry Pond mountain and the toxic aftermath that rains down on Bo, JoAnne, Danny and Rosa.

We now need to halt all mountaintop removal operations. Shut them down.