It’s time to turn the heat up on Gov. Manchin. Today the Governor dodged attempts of community members to arrange a meeting to deliver 500 letters from children around the world concerned about the health of the kids of Marsh Fork Elementary School.
Marsh Fork sits 150 feet away from coal factory and is downstream from a seeping sludge dam. These two waste sites are products of mountaintop removal coal mining which has already claimed over 450 mountains in Appalachia. The Governor has refused repeated requests from the community to move their school to a safer location and to stop mountaintop removal altogether. This week during the “Rising to the Challenge” week of action, the letters will get into the hands of the governor… somehow. Stay tuned for more.
If you are in the area, we will be meeting up at 10:30 am February 1st at the Liberty Bell outside the capitol building in Charleston, WV for a rally and press conference. If you are outside the area, call the governor and demand that he receive the letters! For more info, contact Scott Parkin 415-235-0596 or read this fact sheet.
No mater where you live, give Manchin a Call! His toll free number is 1-888-438-2731. Now is the time for Appalachian politicians to begin listening to the voice of its citizens and not that of coal companies. Nice work!
The Marsh Fork issue is one of many tragedies across the state resulting from the Governor’s marriage to the coal industry. The proposed Trans-Allegheny Transmission Line as well as other transmission lines in the planning stage have been terrorizing families across many hundreds of miles. If this project goes forward, Allegheny Energy and Dominion Power will increase their profits by stealing land from hard-working citizens across WV, VA, and PA. Please see
http://www.adjoint-functors.net/help
and the links there. The WV Public Service Commission web page has hundreds of protest letters and signatures from people being threatened by the transmission line project. See
http://www.psc.state.wv.us/
(click on the “Transmission Line” link under “HOT TOPICS”, then click on “activities”).