Protest: Life Near a Massey Mine is No Picnic

July 27, 2002
Photos by Vivian Stockman

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Protest: Life Near a Massey Mine is No Picnic (July 27, 2002) Massey Energy  invited its employees from several states, and their families, to Charleston for a picnic, shutting down a main Charleston thoroughfare and a public riverside park for days. Just the previous week, homes were destroyed when a Massey valley fill failed and Massey was fined for intentionally polluting a creek at another mine site. Massey has long been a very bad corporate neighbor for West Virginians (click here or here to read about previous protests). 

We planned to protest by land, air and water, but thunderstorms cancelled the later two protest modes. The air protest was to have been a small aircraft circling Massey's picnic with a banner, "Massey Stop the Sludge!"

Below are images from the day, which included an interview with local media and by radio and TV shows of the British Broadcasting Company.