Anti-mountaintop removal protesters were arrested at the Kayford Mountain mining operation as part of several peaceful actions against the coal industry over the holiday weekend. Photo by Antrim Caskey, via Climate Ground Zero.
OK, folks, sorry for my disengagement there for several days. But I’m back and there’s lots of news to pass on …
First, the peaceful civil disobedience against mountaintop removal coal-mining continued over the Memorial Day weekend, with 17 arrests at three different sites: the Kayford Mountain mine (see photo above), the Brushy Fork impoundment, and outside Massey’s Marfork operation (which includes Brush Fork).
Climate Ground Zero, which is organizing the protest actions, has descriptions of what happened at each site here, along with video and photo slide shows. The Gazette had a report on the events on Sunday, and The Associated Press did a brief follow-up story. There’s also more on the site of Mountain Justice, another group involved in organizing the protests.
One interesting point, I thought, was that the Kayford protest — a “lockdown” in which activists chained themselves to a giant dump truck — targeted not Massey Energy, but Patriot Coal.
Sunday’s paper also featured a front-page article by Associated Press business writer Tim Huber outlining the coal industry’s complaints about the Obama administration’s policies on strip mining and global warming, and a piece by the Gazette’s Paul Nyden about the new coal tax report issued by the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy and Downstream Strategies.
Thanks to all you folks who commented and kept is clean and thoughtful over the long weekend. Unfortunately, there were some readers who weren’t so well behaved. So in the future, when I’m going to be off line for a couple of days, I think we’re going to have to put a “time out” on the blog comment section.
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For some people, the idea of taxing unmined (“in situ”) coal would be like the idea of taxing buggy whips. Their position is that coal-fired energy of any sort is basically (or should be) “over” — because of atmospheric carbon emissions, etc. , Presumably, under this view the taxable value of coal reserves should be close to zero. That is, coal in situ should be treated (and taxed) just like any other rock that has not much value or utility — except in holding up the surface.
However, some people who focus on mountaintop removal coal mining say they welcome more underground coal mining — that can replace MTR coal, create coal mining jobs, etc. Presumably these people would say that only coal that can be mined by traditional underground methods should have value and be taxed in situ — and the thinner seams associated with MTR should have no taxable value.
Many other people envision a future for and value in essentially all mineable coal in the ground, although lately science and history are trending against this view. (The CEO of Duke Energy just said that his current-under-construction coal plants are the last ones he foresees until and unless CCS is proven — and he’s more confident about the future of nuclear power.)
These differing viewpoints illustrate why, in the current volatile situation, it seems like it’s hard to fairly estimate the current or long-term value of a lot of coal in the ground. Despite better mapping, etc., the idea of arriving at “fair taxation” of coal reserves could be a dream — that just can’t be realized.
Thoughts?
My, My, My. Here we go. I just can’t figure out why these so called environmentalists call this “civil”. There was nothing civil about this “chaining to large equipemnt” event. These trespassers were asked to leave the mine site by management and they wouldn’t. The banner on the Komatsu 830 Haultruck is vandalism of private property. What would this blog and newspaper say if I were to go to Kayford Mountain and start putting sheet signs and chaining myself to the trees on the private property of Stanley Park? I would b called a terrorist and who knows what else. I work for the company that is mining the property on Kayford Mountain. We just surpasssed 1,000,000 man hours without a lost time accident-http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Patriot-Coals-Catenary-prnews-14886836.html. Show me an underground mine that has accomplished that. Surface mining is the safest form of mining, but some people put prettiness over safety. Also, the surface mine on Kayford Mountain equipment operators make $24 an hour. WOW!! That is great money.
In 2003, that mine on Kayford received Wetlands Award from Ducks Unlimited-http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-26-2004/0002096280&EDATE=. Also, in 2003 this mine received excellence honors for reclamation from the Society of American Foresters-http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ACI/317215566x0x65052/c5cf796b-12b9-4b0f-bcf3-0ecea91342f2/99791.pdf. In 2007 this mine won the West Virginia Mountaineer Guardian Award-http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-26-2004/0002096280&EDATE=. This is one of the most productive, safest, and eco-friendly surface mine that exists.
Also, I believe there should be more extensive fines and penalties imposed for trespassing and putting miners’ lives’ at stake. I hope this newspaper doesn’t condone what is going on, because that would be contributing to illegal acts against citizens of America. How do the miners on Kayford Mountain realize the trespassers aren’t going to harm them or impose harmful acts upon them? No one knows.
I was also glad to see that there are still people in jail because of the cash bond set and I hope more magistrates/judges follow the judge that is handling this case so these people realize this is illegal. Thank You.
Brandon,
You are certainly entitled to disagree with the protesters about the value of mountaintop removal to our society, and to advocate for continuing the practice and the jobs it provides.
But I think you are showing a pretty basic lack of understanding of what civil disobedience is …
I think perhaps you should go back and read some of the posts from the past about these peaceful protests. The difference is pretty simple — these folks are peacefully trespassing instead of being truly violent (JUST as an example — they aren’t shooting people or blowing things up).
If you look up the word “civil” in the dictionary, one of the meanings is polite or courteous. And “civil disobedience” is defined as “refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government.”
That’s what these folks are doing — they are refusing to obey the trespassing laws in a nonviolent way, as a collective means of forcing concessions from the government (the concessions they’re seeking being a halt to mountaintop removal).
As I’ve written before, there’s a very long history of this kind of peaceful civil disobedience in Appalachia, including by coal miners who used similar peaceful protests in strikes — miners trespass all the time during strikes and have done things like take over a Pittston coal tipple in Virginia during the strike against that company. In fact, labor unions have sided with anti-abortion protesters in some court cases in an effort to liberalize the law on to what extent political protesters can shut down commerce (blocking a clinic or — in the case of the coal industry, the entrance to a mine).
I’d suggest that you take a look in particular at this post:
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/02/25/more-from-and-on-mike-roselle/. It provides a lot of background on what civil disobedience is all about and discusses its previous use in the coalfields.
I’m not an expert on destruction of property law, but a definition of vandalism is: willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property.
Does trying a banner to a piece of mining equipment constitute “defacement”? I don’t know the answer to that, but I don’t think those were among the charges against these protesters. Mike Roselle can correct me if I’m wrong about that.
As for your personal plans to chain yourself to a tree in Stanley Heirs Park, if you’re doing that to make a political statement, I think that would constitute peaceful civil disobedience — you have every right to do that, and would face the same penalties as these protesters. I for one would not call you a terrorist for doing that.
As for your list of awards given to this particular mine, I think you have your facts — or at least your links — wrong.
The link you include concerning the Mountaineer Guardian Award in 2007 actually goes to the same press release you previously mentioned concerning the 2003 Ducks Unlimited Award. And the link you posted for the Society of American Foresters recognition doesn’t work. There is a complete list of this operation’s reclamation awards here:
http://www.archcoal.com/aboutus/awards_environmental.aspx, as part of a larger list of Arch Coal (the previous owner) awards for environmental performance.
As for the Mountaineer Guardian Safety Award, this site:
http://www.wvminesafety.org/2007guardian.htm indicates this award went to the preparation plant, Toms Fork Loadout, which operates under a different MSHA ID number than the surface mine. It doesn’t appear to me that the surface mine won that award.
But since you brought up the worker safety issue, it’s important to remember what happened back in February 2007 — when the Samples Mine was cited by federal and state officials when mine management decided to try to use unapproved explosions from the old Talon Manufacturing plant at the surface mine. One of the stories about that incident is online here:
http://www.miningtopnews.com/state-shuts-down-mine-citing-danger-from-talon-explosives.html
The company was cited for creating an imminent danger to its workers, and tens of thousands of dollars in fines were issued to Catenary Coal and its contractors.
And since you’re going back to 2003 to cite reclamation awards, let’s also mention that Catenary paid a $20,000 fine for safety violations that led to the death of a coal miner in 2002.
Ken.
Thanks Ken,
Since the very beginning of this campaign, not only have the demonstrators been civil but the miners and law enforcement officers we’ve encountered have also been civil and very professional. If you look at the photographs of the protests that Massey produced in District Court asking for a Temporary Restraining Order, everyone is smiling. No one was in danger.
Our non violent guidelines declare that we will be open, honest and friendly to everyone we meet. Not everyone agrees on strip mining, but most everyone understands that peaceful protest is a longstanding tradition in our society, and has helped to make this a better country.