Media Advisory

October 19, 2002

Contact: Vivian Stockman, 304-972-3265, Bill McCabe, 304-339-2523, Bill Price 304-854-1813

WHAT:

Protest/ Request for Public Input on Monument in Prominent Public Place

WHEN:

Monday, Oct. 21, 12:15 p.m.

WHERE:

West Virginia State Capitol Grounds, near Cultural Center

WHO:

Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Coal River Mountain Watch, West Virginia Citizen Action Group, Citizen Coal Council

Citizen groups will gather by the MTR plaque and deliver a letter to the Capitol Building Commission.

WHY:

The WV Coal Association has championed a plan to install a statue on the Capitol grounds, ostensibly honoring miners. Environmental and citizens groups fully support a monument that honors coal miners.

However, the WV Coal Association has not been explicitly forthcoming with the general public about the extent of their plans. The base of the statue includes bas-relief plaques which serve to move the Coal Associations public relations efforts off billboards and onto the State Capitol grounds. One plaque features the controversial and legally questionable practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. Another proposed plaque may include wording that is a virtual coal industry ad: In recognition of the men and women who have devoted their careers to providing the state, country and world with low-cost household and industrial energy.

In 1999, the Legislature passed a resolution authorizing the placement of a statue of a West Virginia Coal Miner on the State Capitol grounds, noting that this statue would serve as a lasting memorial to the many who have perished as a result of coal mining in the state. No where in the resolution is it stated that the monument will include a plaque featuring the draglines of mountaintop removal. Most importantly, nowhere does the monument, as it is now configured, pay tribute to those who have lost their lives.

The WV Coal Association represents companies that have a history of resisting even basic worker rights, such as the 40-hour work week, paid holidays, compensation for injuries, and priority attention to worker-safety issues. Some of these same companies are responsible for many of the worst disasters Appalachia has seen, such as the Buffalo Creek Disaster.

The WV Coal Association has maintained that these plaques represent the history of mining. The plaques, however, leave out a great deal about the history of mining: miners lives lost to mine wars, tragedy and lung disease; miners jobs lost to the machines depicted on these plaques and to union-busting coal company tactics; communities, forests and streams lost to mountaintop removal; democracy lost to political corruption; etc.

If we are to believe that the WV Coal Association wants to honor miners, as well as honor the Legislatures resolution, then let the miner statue be all that is on this monument. If the plaques so far placed upon this monument are to remain on display in the most prominent public location in the state, then the public should have input concerning what they depict. If the WV Coal Association says these plaques depict the history of mining, then the plaques must tell the whole story.

Freda Williams, whose grandfathers and father mined coal, says, Shame on the Coal Association for using this cheap method to promote mountaintop removal.

Julia Bonds, whose brother, father, grandfathers and great grandfathers were miners, says, My father would be very upset with this monument, because it is a monument to how the coal industry has efficiently defeated coal miners and gotten rid of their jobs.