Activists’ Field Trip to WV: Report Back on Mountain Range Removal

Richmond IndyMedia, Nov. 13, 2004
by Sue Daniels*

Eighteen activists from North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia gathered in West Virginia on Nov. 7 and 8, for a heartbreaking, yet exciting weekend of witnessing, listening and strategizing. The trip was organized for activists across the region to witness the devastation euphemistically known as mountaintop removal (hereafter called mountain range removal), to listen to people in the coalfields speak of life on the front lines, to network with local organizers, and to further develop strategy and tactics to stop this insanity.

We first went to Kayford Mountain, a 50-acre patch on the top of a hill almost completely surrounded by the barren remnants of what once were ancient mountains.

Larry Gibson, founder of the Stanley Heirs Foundation Park on Kayford, patiently tried to explain to us, over and over, with tears welling, what the mountains used to look like…where the people used to live…where the livestock once were… where it was he used to fish and swim and run from his grouchy uncle…

Three million pounds of dynamite per day are used in West Virginia, to blast off mountains and remove the flat seams of coal. The forests are clearcut; the trees are dumped into the valley fills, followed by the mountain itself.

Slurry ponds are created to hold billions of gallons of toxic liquid containing arsenic, aluminum, mercury, lead, and other metals; their earthen dams break, causing such disasters as in Martin County, Kentucky.

Hundreds of coal trucks careen at high speeds down tiny local roads. People die, killed by coal trucks, floods, dam breaks, and the flyrock itself. Ecosystems vanish – ecosystems of globally recognized biodiversity unique to the Appalachians. The earth’s topography is fundamentally altered.

…From here we drove to Blair, WV, the site of the famous "Battle of Blair Mountain." This battle took place in 1921, when 6,000-7,000 armed coal miners tried to march to Mingo and Logan Counties to join miners struggling to unionize there. They were stopped in Blair by state police, armed mine bosses and hired Baldwin-Felts thugs. For two weeks, gunfire was exchanged across the ridgetops, while the miners tried to pass through three mountain gaps, but were stopped by the machine guns of the state. The miners were finally defeated after the mine bosses called in the assistance of the National Guard and planes flew over the woods dropping rudimentary bombs. This marked the first time in U.S. history that the U.S. government bombed its own citizens.

… We were shown many different faces of this complex struggle – this issue that includes all issues – and left this most beautiful area of West Virginia with tears in our eyes and resolve in our hearts. We look forward now, forward to organizing with our friends in the coalfields and allies across the country for a summer of empowering action against mountain range removal and the coming end to this unacceptable scourge. Mountain range removal will be stopped. Cultural harmony and biological heritage will be protected and restored.

* We are so saddened to say that biologist and stop mountain range removal activist Sue Daniels was taken from this Earth just days after this article was written. Goodbye Sue!