Show Me The Money!

On Earth Day (April 22) at the state capitol, an alliance of citizen groups, union workers, and environmental organizations called for the legislature to protect the health and well-being of West Virginians. They presented a mock check for $2.4 billion to the West Virginia state legislature.

	OVEC member Donna Branham gets ready to deliver the 600 petitions to the House Clerk's Office.

Speakers cited the $20 million dollar settlement between the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Massey Energy for more than four thousand violations of the Clean Water Act in West Virginia and Kentucky.

If the state had collected the full amount of the fines, it would have collected $2.4 billion.

"We would like the legislature to have these billions that could be coming into the state if the Department of Environmental Protection would collect the overdue fines from violators," said Gordon Simmons, President of the Local UE 170. "Unfortunately, there is no money to collect, as the DEP has not been doing its job to hold polluters accountable."

"We are here today because we want to support the DEP," said Donna Branham, an OVEC member from Mingo County. "We want good jobs for the state workers; we want a DEP that has the resources it needs to do its job. We are asking the state legislature to conduct an audit of the DEP, assess why the agency has been missing these billions of dollars. Let’s get the agency the resources it needs to protect our health and our environment."

During the press conference, citizens presented more than 600 petition signatures, which they delivered to the Speaker of the House and the Senate President by way of the clerks’ offices. The groups will continue collecting signatures on the petition, which calls for the legislature to audit the DEP, fill the 100 job vacancies in the DEP, assess why the agency has missed so many fines, and postpone the issuance of any future permits until the audit is complete and the fines are collected.

"Year after year after year, the DEP has failed to enforce the environmental standards of state law," said Dawn Knight, a chapter president of the West Virginia Public Workers Union. "It is in the public interest that the Division of Environmental Protection be vigilant in its inspections and vigorous in its enforcement. It is in the public interest that DEP hire and maintain an adequate and professional staff. It is in the public interest that corporate polluters be punished and made to put our state’s ecology right again, to undo the wanton damage of poisoning our land and water and the very air we breathe.

  "It is obviously not enough for the legislature to pass laws to protect us. The laws must be enforced. So we call on that branch to audit DEP," Knight added. "It is high time for the legislative branch to exercise its oversight responsibilities to the people and land of West Virginia."

Left to right, OVEC organizer Patricia Feeney and Mingo County members Carolyn Van Zant and Donna Branham show off the giant check with the amount of money the DEP could have collected in fines - if it had cared enough to do its job.

The event was sponsored by OVEC, WV Public Workers Union, Coal River Mountain Watch, Concerned Citizens of Mingo County, West Virginia Citizen Action Group, the WV Environmental Council, Sustainable Living for West Virginia, Keepers of the Mountain Foundation, Student Environmental Action Coalition and Sierra Club.