Winds of Change Newsletter, September 2005     See sidebar for table of contents

First Issue of Mountain Defender Newspaper a Success!

As part of the outreach done by the Mountain Justice Summer campaign in West Virginia, about 20 volunteers combed the coalfields in Boone, Raleigh, Mingo, Logan, McDowell, and Wyoming counties in the week before July 30.

They distributed about 13,000 copies of the first issue of the West Virginia Mountain Defender. The idea was birthed at this year’s Summit for the Mountains as a tool for outreach and education.

The issue included information on various organizations working to end mountaintop removal, a list of sludge impoundment failures in West Virginia, and articles on the recent successes in the Marsh Fork Elementary School campaign.