“The coal companies sure as hell aren’t going to do anything about it – someone’s got to,” said Junior Walk, 20, of the Coal River Valley.
Once all the trees were planted and the activists were not under arrest, they walked back off with their shovels.
“The coal industry does not attempt to return the landscape to its previous biodiversity – leaving it up to the citizens to reclaim it themselves,” said John Johnson, a forester and environmentalist. “Fixing the ruined landscape will provide long term jobs for those put out of work by the abolition of mountaintop removal.”
The standard reclamation practiced by mining companies is inadequate, according to Johnson, which involves regrading high walls into gentle, highly-compacted slopes and seeding the rocky soil with grass.
“Some companies plant trees, but rarely return to tend the,” he said. “Most trees don’t survive long. The extremely diverse mixed mesophytic forests of Central Appalachia, which rely upon the micro-climates created by the area’s folded land, cannot re-grow on reclaimed surface mines. Native plants like ginseng require the steep north-facing slopes of Appalachia that retain moisture, and will never grow on the gentle slopes of a reclaimed strip mine.”
The coal industry defends mountaintop removal by touting the flat land of reclaimed mine sites as prime for development.
However, the environmental activists point to a recent report by the Natural Resoures Defense Council, which says, “Only about four percent of mountains in Kentucky and West Virginia, where the vast majority of this mining is occurring, had any post-mining economic activity.”
The day’s rally began in the Stanley Heir’s Park, a small island of green surrounded by 12,000 acres of mountaintop removal, much of which is in some state of reclamation.
People in the front of the march included former West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler, Larry Gibson and two Colombian union coal miners — National President of Sintramienergetica Raul Sosa and Jose Brito of the SintraCarbon union.
“The Colombian Network Against Transnational Large-Scale Mining sent letter of support to Appalachian Rising,” Johnson added. “The two Colombians joined the march to the mine’s edge as part of a solidarity tour that included a meeting with the Matewan local UMWA and people working to save Blair Mountain.”
The activists say Free trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (CTPA), hurt workers, communities and environments both here and in Colombia.
“Leaders in their unions have been assassinated by paramilitaries, and the union says Alabama-based Drummond Co. is behind them,” one activist claimed. “The tour is the result of work by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and possibly others.”
“I am a 6th generation West Virginian from Mercer County and I’m a granddaughter and great granddaughter of coal miners. And they’d be mad about mountaintop removal,” Wendy Johnston said. “The battle of Blair Mountain lives on in my and my fathers’ spirit.”
The rally and action comes on the heels of the EPA’s recommendation to veto the Spruce No. 1 mine’s permit and Appalachia Rising, the largest national gathering of people in opposition to mountaintop removal coal mining to date.
Appalachia Rising culminated with a march to the White House of over 2,000 people and 114 arrests for non-violent civil disobedience at the White House, PNC Bank, Department of Interior and Army Corps of Engineers.
The former West Virginia Secretary of State, Ken Hechler has been a vocal opponent of mountaintop removal since the early 1970’s.
The former West Virginia Secretary of State, Ken Hechler has been a vocal opponent of mountaintop removal since the early 1970’s.
Ken Hechler, a long-serving West Virginia statesman said at the rally, “I may be 96, but there’s a fire in my belly. I’m here to help save these beautiful mountains of West Virginia and put people back to work doing useful things.”
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