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Monday Clean Elections Meeting
Act Now to Participate In Ohio Vote Recount
Web Chat On Mountaintop Removal
Some Recent Letters To The Editor
Today, more than usual, we are Remembering Laura.
Dianne Bady, Cover GirlOVEC co-founder and co-director Dianne Bady is now a cover girl! She's on the cover of Wisconsin University's alumni magazine, On Wisconsin, which has the largest circulation--a quarter million--of any such magazine. Inside is a story about Dianne, OVEC, Coal River Mountain Watch's Maria Gunnoe and mountaintop removal. Read the story at: www.uwalumni.com/onwisconsin/.
The gift that gives twice: OVEC has the Moving Mountains: Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining available for a donation of $15. Call the office at 304-522-0246 to get your copy, or respond to this e-mail. We also have OVEC T-shirts and other merchandise.
Get in Those Letters To The Editors
Did you read about how Massey Energy is giving holiday trinkets to underprivileged kids? Yup, the same kids that Massey gives to all year long--gives blast-damaged homes, buried streams, toxic coal sludge impoundments, etc. How about the Army Corps of Engineers suggesting some flood control measures, while still permitting new valleys fills at mountaintop removal operations under a streamlined permit process ? The Corps continues this activity, despite a federal Judge's ruling blocking it from issuing this type of permit. (That ruling was a result of a lawsuit filed by Joe Lovett and Jim Hecker on behalf of OVEC, Coal River Mountain Watch and the Natural Resources Defense Council.)
If you check into our news page on our website, you'll find link to news stories that will spark ideas for letters to the editors. We also post links to the letters themselves when they are published, and we've had quite a string recently. Please help build the momentum. If you need background information on mountaintop removal for your letter, we have fact sheets on our website.
While we sure don't have the money to counteract the coal industry's TV-ad propaganda, we do have the power of truth and numbers! Letters to the editor are one of the most heavily read sections of newspapers. Please write letters to the editors of local and statewide (no matter what state!) newspapers, and tell them what you think about mountain range removal. Find contact information for almost all West Virginia media at: www.wvmediaguide.com/. See http://newslink.org/ to find the address for about any paper in the country. Feel free to e-mail us copies of letters you send.
Citizens For Clean Elections to
Meet On Monday
Please join us for the next Clean Elections meeting on Monday, December
13 at the South Charleston Municipal Building (4th and D Street in South
Charleston), from noon to 2 p.m. Bring your lunch and we'll supply
drinks and a dessert.
Citizens For Clean Elections has developed some scenarios for a proposed
pilot project on Clean Elections to provide Delegate John Doyle (a
member of Select Committee F on Campaign Finance Reform). During
interims this past Monday (Dec. 6), Delegate Doyle recommended that the
Select Committee develop a pilot project for Clean Elections before the
start of the 2006 session. This recommendation was approved! So we are
making progress! For more info call 346-5891 or e-mail
julie@wvcag.org.
Participate in the Ohio
Recount!
Join trainings for the Ohio recount process in Portsmouth, Ohio
on Saturday from 2 - 6 p.m. and in Athens, Ohio on Sunday at 2 p.m.
Please contact one of the coordinators below if you are interested in
the training. Please also let linda@wvcag.org
know; she will try to coordinate some car pools. The recount will likely
begin Tuesday or Wednesday. In order to make the most efficient use of
training time, coordinators are asking that you dedicate at least one
full day to being a recount volunteer.
Ohio Recount Coordinators:
Near Huntington
Andrew Feight Sciotto County Coord H 740-776-0747 w 740 351-3143
afeight@shawnee.edu
Susan Luther Lawrence County Coord 740-867-4617
hollormama@aol.com
Near Parkersburg
Jeanne Wilson Washington County Coord h 740 374 3443
fiveguysandme@yahoo.com
Steve Fetsch Athens Asst Coord 740-594-4644
gofetsch@frognet.net
Susan Garguillo Athens Asst Coord 740-448-7269
smokey@usinternet.com
E-Sign a Petition for La
Paix Herb Farm
Our friends at La Paix Herb Farm in Alum Bridge,
W.Va. are asking for your help. The farm is the historic May Kraus
Farm, and has been approved by the West Virginia Division of Culture and
History as eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic
Places. For 14 years, the beautiful gardens, woods and ambiance of La
Paix have been enjoyed by hundreds of visitors who tour the farm to
learn more about organic gardening and sustainable living. Please e-sign
a petition asking Dominion Gas to end it plans for further drilling on
the property. To sign, send your name, address, e-mail and/or phone
number to:
lapaix@westvirginia.net.
Discussion Online Now; Live Web Chat
Dec.14
Please join the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal's discussion of the
book The Appalachians, which is about rural life, poverty and
environmental abuses in this region of the country. No advance
preparation is necessary to join the discussion - just an interest in
the subject, especially as it pertains to mountaintop removal. Mari-Lynn
Evans, co-editor of the book, will visit the newspaper's discussion
board regularly to field questions and add comments. To participate in
the discussion board, click
here.
In addition, the newspaper will host a live online chat on this subject
on Dec. 14 from 7-8 p.m. Eastern Time. Special guests will include
Mari-Lynn Evans, Judy Bonds from Coal River Mountain Watch and me (Viv). Click
here for the link into the live chat (http://forums.prospero.com/kr-ohio_evans/chat). Please
mark your calendars for this opportunity to voice opinions on this
subject.
Sample Letters To The
Editor
Dear Editor:
Supreme Court Justice Spike Maynard recently stated the Court's guidance
in the case of flood victims versus coal and timber operators. I've
interpreted his remarks as I understand them.
Maynard: "This court simply does not believe that the day-to-day
activities of defendants necessarily create a high risk of flash
flooding." Interpretation: "My friend Don Blankenship, who stands to
lose a lot of money in this case, told me that Massey Energy doesn't
cause floods."
Maynard: "Also, we are convinced that any increased risk of flooding
which results from defendant's extractive activities can be greatly
reduced by the exercise of due care." Interpretation: "If you're worried
about your home being flooded by mountain range removal activity, you
should move, preferably out of the coalfields."
Maynard: "Finally, we are unable to conclude that the great economic
value of some of these extractive activities, such as coal mining, is
outweighed by their dangerous attributes." Interpretation: "Coal profits
are more important than lives.
In West Virginia, justice is blind to reality, deaf to the pleas of
victims, and dumb as a box of rocks. We need clean elections. We need
real justice and courageous justices who will live up to the title.
Vernon Haltom
Dear Editor:
When will West Virginians begin to realize what they really pay for
coal? Probably not until every mountaintop of coal has been removed and
much of the state looks exactly like photos of the moon (as is already
the case in Southern West Virginia).
Probably not until a whole culture has been removed and we talk about it
affectionately as we do the lost American Indian culture.
Probably not until state government comes clean and tells us exactly how
much we have paid in taxes to restore bridges, roads and flooded areas
that were damaged by overloaded coal trucks and mountaintop removal
mining.
Probably not until we realize how much bribe money is paid by coal
companies to keep legislators, judges and preachers in line.
Probably not until much of our clean water sources are depleted and we
pay as much for drinking water as for an ingot of gold.
The huge billboards declare that "Coal keeps the lights on." One could
easily add, "Yes, but at what cost?"
Kathryn A. Stone
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