OVEC Action Alert - October 16, 2002

Plaque Flak 

NOON, MON. OCT 21: PROTEST THE PLAQUES - Yes to Miners, No to Mountaintop Removal!

Please meet us at noon, sharp, by the MTR plaque on the State Capitol grounds. You can't miss it. It's BIG. As you come in from Greenbrier/Washington St., by the Cultural Center, there looms the MTR dragline plaque.

Please bring either general signs-Stop Mountaintop Removal-or more specific signs around the "Tell the Whole Story of Coal" theme. Ideas below.

If you don't know what we're talking about, please check:

Charleston Gazette: Miner statue - Dragline plaque inappropriate
DailyMail: Groups squabble over Capitol statue

More news on this issue is on the OVEC web page. Look for the red star.

The coal miner is a proud symbol of West Virginia grit and fire. We respect and endorse THAT PART of the statue, but the MTR plaque and the proposed wording for another plaque are unconscionable public relations ploys brought to you by the WV Coal Association and its supporters in public office.

Proposed wording for as yet un-erected plaque: "In recognition of the men and women who have devoted their careers to providing the state, country and world with low cost household and industrial energy."

Careers? What about those whose lives were taken early? Cheap energy? Get real!

We would happily forget our objections if the bas-relief plaques were removed (how hard could this be for the practitioners of MTR?) We suggest that WV Coal Association president Bill Raney might like to have the plaques located in his front yard.

Protest theme: As Bill Price's inspired comments to a Beckley Register Herald editorial suggest, let the monument indeed tell the whole history of coal!

Bill wrote: If the entire legacy of mining is to be told, then the statue should be surrounded by a pool of black sludge similar to the recent spill at a Massey Energy plant in Logan County. I would suggest a bas-relief panel that shows the homes and lives destroyed by dust, blast-damage and flooding that occurs at the bottom of valley fills from mountain top removal. And one panel should show a scene of state government placing the interests of coal over the general welfare of the citizens of West Virginia.

"Tell the Whole Story about Coal!" opens up so many possibilities. If this monument is to tell the whole story, it will be huge!

Sign ideas: One True Benefit of Coal: Coal Barons so Bad, Unions were Formed

Cheap Energy? How Cheap is Life?

Tell the Whole Story: 125,000 miners in the 1940s, 15,000 today!

Tell the Whole Story: Black Lung

Tell the Whole Story: Buried Streams

Tell the Whole Story: Communities Destroyed!

Tell the Whole Story: Buffalo Creek Flood, Acid Rain, Coal Sludge Disasters, etc., etc.

The sign possibilities are unfortunately multitudinous.

For more information, e-mail vivian@ohvec.org. Hope to see you Monday.

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