Stop Mountaintop Removal! A call to action March 31st!

Down with King Coal! Save Appalachia - Stop Mountaintop
Removal!

Take Action on March 31!
Our demand is simple – stop mountaintop removal and all forms of surface mining for coal.

Groups and individuals across Appalachia are rising in united nonviolent protest against the increasing cultural and environmental devastation caused by this most destructive form of mining. Mountaintop removal results in loss of life, loss of employment, destruction of homes, and elimination of communities throughout the coalfields

On March 31, join Mountain Justice Summer’s fight to protect Appalachian citizens’ lives, culture, and environment.

Mountaintop removal (MTR) is a form of coal mining that devastates entire communities and ecosystems. The mining industry and its government cronies prefer the euphemisms “mountaintop mining” and “peak reduction,” while coalfield residents are beginning to use the term “mountain range removal” to reflect the scope of devastation. But no words can accurately express the scale of destruction and injustice.

The most recent atrocity was the killing of a three-year-old boy in his sleep when a bulldozer pushed a boulder off the mountain above his home.

The coal industry says pure, tranquil streams like this are worthless and should be blasted into oblivion or buried under tons of rubble so coal barons can get richer. Don't let them! Save Appalachia on March 31!

The coal barons, in their ongoing terrorist campaign against the people of Appalachia, use MTR with great effect. Already they have buried over 1,200 miles of streams, laid waste to hundreds of thousands of acres of land, and stockpiled billions of gallons of toxic sludge in threatening locations above communities and schools.

The stripped and leveled land increases runoff during rainstorms, and several have died or lost their homes in recent floods. West Virginia ranks first in the nation in FEMA assistance (YOUR tax dollars to pick up after King Coal!) and first in explosives use (3 million pounds per DAY!), two intertwined statistics ignored by the media.

MTR ravages Kentucky, where over 2.6 million pounds of explosives per day is used to rape the mountains for coal, and 1.2 million pounds per day rocks the mountains of Virginia. In these three states alone, the coal industry hammers the mountains with the net explosive force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima every three days!!

With the practice growing throughout the region, including Tennessee where vast tracts of mountains are slated for obliteration, we need your voice to join Mountain Justice Summer in a chorus of solidarity.

What King Coal prefers: vast stretches of barren, polluted wasteland that contributes to flooding, poverty, death, and the loss of human and animal habitat--the true cost of cheap energy. King Coal says the mountains look better level and without trees.

To add insult to injury, corporations and industry front groups such as Friends of Coal air TV ads, place billboards, infiltrate schools and sponsor sports events to cover their misdeeds with flashy propaganda. Celebrity endorsers, such as Mrs. West Virginia, Marshall University football coach Bob Pruett, and former West Virginia University football coach Don Nehlen promote Friends of Coal and the coal industry as indispensable for the region’s economy.

In fact, mountain removal is largely responsible for nearly three-quarters of mining jobs being eliminated in West Virginia and two-thirds in Kentucky from 1980 to 2000.

March 31 is Friends of Coal Day at the state capitol in Charleston, WV. Industry bullies, puppet politicians, and misinformed celebrities will spew propaganda to a crowd of potentially thousands. The coal barons and their lackeys will tout the benefits of coal to a state and region devastated by MTR. Stand with us to counter lies with truth, injustice with justice, corruption with integrity, and intimidation with courage.

Our protest rally is from 12:00-3:00 in the stage area at the north side of the capitol. Take I-77 or I-64 into Charleston and follow the signs to the capitol. We might provide some shuttles; check www.mountainjusticesummer.org for updates.

If you are interested in participating in MJS, or would like more information about it, please contact one of the following intake folks by the region closest to you!

For Tennessee joystickenema (at) yahoo.com
For Georgia zuwarah (at) hushmail.com
For West Virginia alextrue2 (at) hotmail.com
For North Carolina jsmith (at) warren-wilson.edu
For New York, DC and all points Northeast
oldtimemountain (at) yahoo.com
And for everywhere else- mountainjusticesummer (at) hushmail.com

If you can’t make it to Charleston (we REALLY need you to help counter FOC’s coerced or paid-day-off crowd), protest MTR locally. There is an institution near you complicit in mountain removal coal mining: a coal company, an electric utility, a government office, a bank, or a lobbying firm.

Here’s what you can do:
If you’re good at picketing, picket. If you’re good at guerilla theatre, do it. If you can chalk, call, email or take direct action - whatever you do best – do it. Call your representatives, go to a nearby area doing an action, see who is evil in your town, protest in front of your federal building, issue press releases, protest your utility company and demand they not buy coal from companies involved with mountaintop removal, protest your university if they are using coal, picket Peabody, Massey, National Coal, and lots more.

Contact us if you’re in a major city and need some suggested locations - there are plenty. See the contact list below for websites, addresses and other info. You can use the companies’ websites to find out who they are, where their directors are from, where their offices and mines are, etc… A Google search on many of these companies will also turn up who their investors are.

This is a call for a simultaneous day of action against mountaintop removal across Appalachia, the US and the world. Be as loud as you can in protest of watershed destruction!

Protest! Demonstrate! Make some phone calls! Send some email!
Turn off the lights! Take direct action!

For the Mountains!

Mountain Justice Summer
Please visit www.mountainjusticesummer.org for more info.

MISSION STATEMENT:

Mountain Justice Summer (MJS) seeks to add to the growing anti-MTR citizens’ movement. Specifically, MJS demands an abolition of MTR, steep slope strip mining and all other forms of surface mining for coal. We want to protect the cultural and natural heritage of the Appalachia coalfields. We want to contribute with grassroots organizing, public education, nonviolent civil disobedience and other forms of citizen action.
Historically, coal companies have engaged in violence and property destruction when faced with citizen opposition to their activities. MJS is committed to nonviolence and will not be engaged in property destruction.

Sign up for our electronic newsletter.
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/mjsnews

Please let us know about your action. If you need more info, please email:
annebonnylives (at) yahoo.com
johnjef (at) bledsoe.net
bamsterman (at) charter.net
edge37343 (at) yahoo.com

Good websites with lots of mountain top removal info:
www.ohvec.org, www.appvoices.org

Coal Contacts:

Feel free to contact the following and politely express your disapproval of mountaintop removal and all other forms of destructive surface mining.

Friends of Coal (an industry front group for the WV Coal Association)
P.O. Box 3923 Charleston, WV 25339 1-866-982-2625
http://www.friendsofcoal.org

West Virginia Coal Association (lobbying group) P.O. Box 3923, Charleston, WV 25339
http://www.wvcoal.com Phone: 304-342-4153 Fax: 304-342-7651
Staff of the WV Coal Ass:
President - Bill Raney - braney (at) wvcoal.com, Senior VP -
Chris Hamilton - chamilton (at) wvcoal.com
VP - Dan Miller - dmiller (at) wvcoal.com, Regulatory Affairs -
Jason Bostic - jbostic (at) wvcoal.com
Administrative Assistant - Sandi Davison -
sdavison (at) wvcoal.com

Massey Energy (destroyer of mountains, waterways, and communities in WV and KY, also viciously anti-union)
Massey Energy Company - 4 North 4th Street, Richmond,
Virginia 23219
Phone: 888-424-2417, 804-788-1824
http://www.masseyenergyco.com
Massey.Hotline (at) masseyenergyco.com
Some of Massey’s top managers:
katherine.kenny (at) masseyenergyco.com,
john.parker (at) masseyenergyco.com,
michael.allen (at) masseyenergyco.com,
steve.sears (at) masseyenergyco.com,
gary.smith (at) masseyenergyco.com,
gary.temple (at) masseyenergyco.com,
tom.kielty (at) masseyenergyco.com,
thomas.dougherty (at) masseyenergyco.com

A&G Coal Corporation (This is the VA company that killed a little boy in August 2004 with a runaway boulder)
Phone (276) 328-3421

National Coal Corporation (leading the charge for destruction in TN)
National Coal - 8915 George Williams Rd. Knoxville, TN 37923
Phones: 865-769-3749, 865-690-6900, 866-703-COAL (toll Free)
Fax: 865-691-9982
Email: info (at) nationalcoal.com,
investorrelations (at) nationalcoal.com, sales (at) nationalcoal.com,
jdavis (at) nationalcoal.com

Crestview Capital Funds (an institutional investor in NCC)
95 Revere Drive, Suite A, Northbrook, Illinois, 60062 Phone:
847-559-0060 Fax: 847-559-5807
http://www.crestviewcap.com Email: lisa (at) crestviewcap.com

Cunningham & Company (a public relations firm working for
NCC)
730 W. Randolph St., 6th Floor Chicago, Illinois, 60661
Phone: 312-876-1070 Fax: 312-454-0261
http://www.cunninghamcomp.com, Email: info (at) cunninghamcomp.com