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

MOUNTAIN JUSTICE SUMMER

Success Brings Threats to Project Organizers

by Vivian Stockman

	A rock just “happened” to smash through the rear window of one organizer’s vehicle parked in front of the storefront office the Coalfield Sustainability Project is working out of in Naoma, WV. Luckily, no one was hurt. photo by Matthew Noerpel

Almost as soon as the Coalfield Sustainability Project organizers, loosely associated with the Mountain Justice Summer (MJS) campaign, moved into a house in Naoma, WV, many of their new neighbors greeted them with gestures of solidarity and support, including gifts of cakes and a freezer-full of meat.

Some, however, were quick to label the mountaintop removal opponents as “outsiders.” Some drove by early in the morning, blaring horns and screaming profanity. At 4:30 a.m. on June 8, a vandal or vandals smashed in the rear window of a truck belonging to a resident of the organizers’ house.

Coal River Mountain Watch also has been the target of intimidation tactics, perhaps because the combined efforts of Friends of the Mountains groups and the MJS campaign have resulted in heightened publicity over Marsh Fork Elementary in particular and mountaintop removal in general.

Their office received some angry calls about the Mountain Defender newspaper. Far worse, Judy Bonds and Bo Webb received warnings that they would end up at the bottom of a mine crack if they kept up their work. Someone swerved her car at Bo during one of the marches in Coal River Valley.

OVEC board member Larry Gibson is no stranger to unkind and ignorant acts by bullies who want to cow him into not speaking out. Perhaps because he has hosted MJS folks on Kayford Mountain several times, Larry has endured several acts of vandalism this summer.

Someone smashed his solar panels, spray-painted his cabin and broke his motion-activated light and pulled out its wires. The light was in place to alert Larry if someone was snooping around his cabin at night.

When Larry spoke at our July 30 Stop Mountaintop Removal Rally, he invited folks to his place to see mountaintop removal first hand and to camp over that evening on the mountain.

About 1 a.m. that next morning, someone fired shots near Larry’s cabin.

In the following days, a network of people began researching how they could install a better security system on Kayford Mountain. They are collecting donations for that system, which will include a new solar panel for power.

MJS was conceived and implemented as a non-violent campaign, in which there would be no property destruction. Even in the face of bullying, vandalism and death threats, there have been no acts of property destruction or violence on our part.

Meanwhile, Walker Machinery profits by selling the huge machines that destroy our mountains and rob miners of jobs.

Walker’s marketing manager wrote an op-ed, “Be wary of radical protesters,” which has so far appeared in the Charleston Gazette and Morgantown Dominion-Post.

“State residents, especially Southern West Virginians, should be wary of strangers in their communities this summer,” Walker wrote. He accuses “ominous” MJS of being “willing to not only break the law but to use violence in an effort to move their agenda forward.”

This is strange coming from a man who profits from an industry that apparently feels free to operate outside the law; an industry that uses three million pounds of high explosives every working day on West Virginia’s life-filled mountains.

Walker continues, “West Virginia-based environmental groups – the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch and perhaps the Highlands Conservancy – appear to be involved in this effort, but to what extent? Will they be able to restrain the more volatile out-of-state contingent and more importantly, should they be held accountable if this effort devolves into property destruction and/or violence? …I would encourage readers to be cognizant of this effort, and to keep an eye out for strangers.”

As Dave Cooper wrote in a letter to the editor about this op-ed, “West Virginians have nothing to fear from Mountain Justice Summer. I just wish I could say the same about Walker Machinery and the coal industry.”

Noama house resident, Ellen Osuna, also writing to the editor about this op-ed, noted, “As far as being outsiders – when we see an issue like MTR that is profoundly destructive, something that hurts the land, air and water that sustains life for all people, something that takes away jobs and pretends to do the opposite, we try our best to help, especially when our help is requested by residents who have been displaced and sickened because of MTR. We do not reply ‘No, can’t help you, you’re not from our hometowns’.”

People are certainly allowed to have differing opinions. But vandalism and threats are plain wrong. As wrong as blowing up mountains, burying streams and destroying our mountain heritage, our kids’ futures.