Coal Slurry – Page 3 – Climate Ground Zero

April 28, 2009

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

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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February 16, 2009

Blasting at Clays Branch

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Mike Roselle – 304 854 7372

February 16th, 2009

Blasting at Clays Branch, Cherry Pond Mountain, Raleigh County, West Virginia

On Monday, February 16 2009, at about 11am, two members of Climate Ground Zero were arrested for interfering with MTR blasting on the Massey Energy-owned Edwhite mountain top removal site near the Shumate Dam on Cherry Pond Mountain. The Shumate dam holds back 2.8 billion gallons of toxic sludge, the waste by-product of chemically cleaning coal, and sits above the Marsh Fork elementary school. Since 2005, local citizens have demanded that Marsh Fork Elementary School be moved to protect the children from a massive dam failure like the one that happened in Kingston, Tennessee on December 22 of last year.

“This is a crime against nature”, said James McGuinness, “It is not only illegal, it is immoral.” “They have no right to destroy this mountain.”

“Massey Energy’s plan to destroy this mountain for coal threatens the health and safety of the residents of Clays Branch and the Hunter Addition of Naoma. This is a serious threat to the ecology, the economy and the future of West Virginia.” Said Mike Roselle, of Rock Creek.

“If the blasting continues, and the Shumate Dam was to fail, the lives of thousands of West Virginians would be at risk.”

Clays Branch is part of Cherry Pond Mountain, which stretches east along Rt 3 to Bolt Mountain (Rt 99). Clays Branch is located above Marsh Fork Elementary School, above the 2.8 billion gallon sludge pond at Shumate and up the left hand fork of Shumate hollow. There is massive MTR blasting currently ongoing –next to an unstable sludge dam, above an elementary school and surrounded by mountain communities.

February 6, 2009

Windmills Not Toxic Spills

Marfork, West Virginia — On the heels of the TVA coal ash sludge disaster in Harriman, Tennessee, where 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge collapsed into the Clinch and Emory Riveres, concerned citizens in southern West Virginia have been fighting to stop the coal mining of Coal River Mountain and to build instead the Coal River Wind project, which would create clean jobs in perpetuity.

Five activists chained themselves down to heavy mining equipment inside the Massey Energy-owned mountaintop removal (MTR) coal operation. Two banners reading: "Windmills Not Toxic Spills" and "Save Coal River Mountain" were hung. Proesters were completely non-violent and were taken off the mine company property without incident, cited for tresspassing and released. photograph by Antrim Caskey