It\’s Getting Hot In Here

   I’m writing to ask you to take a step today that can help develop new and healthier economies in the Southern West Virginia coalfield communities. By a few simple, digital steps, and your vote, you can help jump start the grass roots “Build It Up, West Virginia! Summer Program” which is a Program where young West Virginians are coming together and reclaiming our state ourselves. Heard enough? Great. Go here and vote for the “Build It Up! West Virginia Summer Program”.

From Growing Gardens & Local Foods in Fayette County

The deadline for voting is June 21st and we have to have the most votes in order to win the grant – we need you to vote & spread the word now!

Here’s how you can help:

1) VOTE 3x
2) RSVP TO OUR EVENT & INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TO THIS FACEBOOK PAGE

For years, communities in Central Appalachia, in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, have been standing up to defend their quality of life, the quality of their environment and the prospects for a brighter and better tomorrow for their children and grandchildren. For over a century, the coal industry has maintained a mono-economic stranglehold on many places in Appalachia, a stranglehold that has held the coalfields captive to the destructive whims of King Coal.

Continue reading ‘Vote Online to Build Clean Energy Economies in the Southern WV Coalfields!’

Written by Billy Astrove (Rockin’ West Virginia Wesleyan College in the picture) in the Student Environmental Action Coalition’s Threshold Blog

Hello all,

I am writing today to inform you about an exciting opportunity for West Virginia youth this summer. On Brighterplanet.com, there is a grant that would bring $5,000 to the West Virginia Youth Action League to develop a summer program to work side by side with other grassroots groups to develop various sustainability projects. All of our sites are low income communities who are looking to build their economy.

The grant will allow for up to 15 West Virginians to work in these communities and work with the residents living there to develop jobs. Those who work will earn a fair-wage stipend to work with these communities.

The link to vote is http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/145

In addition, you can read more about the summer program at:http://www.seac.org/wvyal/summer

Continue reading ‘Vote Now for Healthier Economies in the Coalfields!’

“Oh Say, did you see him; it was early this morning.He passed by your houses on his way to the coal.He was tall, he was slender, and his dark eyes so tenderHis occupation was mining, West Virginia his home

It was just before noon, I was feeding the children,Ben Moseley came running to give us the news.Number eight was all flooded, many men were in dangerAnd we don’t know their number, but we fear they’re all doomed”

- Jean Ritchie

Coal mining is dangerous business and the people of the Appalachian Coalfields, from Tennessee to West Virginia to Pennsylvania, have come to expect disasters out of the mining industry. Mining is a job that’s full of risks and packed with hard work. Miners have come to be proud of the work that they do which truly has had a great role in powering the United States for more than the last century. It’s been work that’s populated Appalachia with amazing people but has kicked up a lot of coal dust in the process all over our great state of West Virginia.

After 9/11, where I was less than 10 miles from the Pentagon and remember hearing fighter jets & helicopters flying over my house throughout that tense night. I never thought I would feel that tragic emotion that brought anger, anticipation, fear, mourning, and pride together into one horrendous stomach ache again. Then came the disaster at Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine.

Continue reading ‘Preventing the Next Mine Disaster: UNIONIZE’

The permit for the largest mountaintop removal project in West Virginia is almost history.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has propsed a veto of Arch Coal’s Spruce Number 1 strip mine that would have buried more than seven miles of streams and destroy 2,278 acres (about 3.5 square miles) of rich mountains.  This veto still has to go through the official process to get finalized but this is the biggest concrete victory on stopping mountaintop removal in a long time.  We need to celebrate.

We need to celebrate because we’re protecting Appalachia, but we need to be cautiously celebrating. The economy in the coalfields is still heavily dependent on, well, coal.  While it’s true that there are one-sixth of the mining jobs in West Virginia that there were 50 years go, there’s 20,000 now, certain portions of the state are definitely still dependent on coal.

I remember that, in the October 2009 Public Hearing in Charleston on Mountaintop Removal, a pro-Mountaintop Removal speaker from Logan County lamented seeing environmentalists partying next to the mountain they saved while he tried to figure out what’s next for his family now that those paychecks weren’t coming.  That’s the question we should be asking of the Obama Administration as we thank them for their veto.  We should be both asking them what’s next for the coalfields and bringing them solutions.

Who benefits most from the coal-fired electricity produced in West Virginia?

For more than a century, West Virginia coal miners have sacrificed their backs, lungs, and health to put food on their families table. For more than fifty years, West Virginia communities have seen not only massive job loss, but an escalating loss of our mountains to strip mining. For more than twenty years, West Virginia miners have had their most powerful voice, the United Mine Workers of America, broken by aggressive coal companies – with Don Blankenship & Massey Energy leading the union-busting charge. For more than ten years, West Virginians have seen the ultimate taking – the taking of our homes – to Mountaintop Removal and the Valley Fills it creates.

Right now, the same people who have been responsible for all of the above are pushing for a giant power line to ship electricity from the Charleston (WV) area to the Eastern Seaboard. The Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline (PATH) starts in Putnam County, WV then cuts its way across the mountains and valleys of 17 West Virginia Communities on its way out of state.

Continue reading ‘Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline: Eight New Coal Plants is the Wrong Choice’

We have seen unprecedented support for the Wind Power and Green Jobs that are threatened by Mountaintop Removal.  I am damn proud to be a part of this historic effort and to stand with all of you.

Since the launch of the Coal River Wind Campaign in August, more than 8,500 of you have shown your support.  Since the alert went out earlier this week that Massey Energy is moving blasting rigs onto Coal River Mountain, more than 2,500 letters have been sent to WV Governor Manchin demanding that he hold Massey accountable.  We have never before seen such grassroots support for a concrete & positive alternative to Mountaintop Removal, but the amazing showing we’ve had so far is not enough.
Continue reading ‘Update on Coal River Mountain Wind: We’ve Gotta Keep the Pressure On’

This is copy & pasted from a post on SEAC’s Threshold blog by Aramie.

Indigenous Call for Action Answered by Youth/Environmental Groups
Black Mesa Project permitting process re-opened! Deadline for comments: July 7, 2008
Diné elder Pauline Whitesinger faces threats from government officials

Black Mesa, Arizona, home to the Diné (Navajo) and Hopi tribal reservations, is also home to massive mining operations run by Peabody Coal. In the past 30 years the mine at Black Mesa has contributed 325 million tons of carbon dioxide to atmospheric levels. Mining officials, with backing from the U.S. government, are responsible for capping local water supply (to supply mines) and harassing, threatening and in some cases assaulting Black Mesa residents, many who are elders resisting being driven from the land their ancestors have occupied for hundreds of years.

Peabody Coal now wants to expand the mining operation at a potential environmental cost of 290 million tons of CO2 and an unfathomable personal cost to all who continue to live and fight for their lives on Black Mesa. In related news, area residents continue to face threats and intimidation at the hands of the U.S. government, and it is no coincidence that the afflicted live on what Peabody Coal clearly sees as “their profit”.

Continue reading ‘Indigenous Call for Action Answered by Youth/Environmental Groups — act now!’

The youth organization of the most powerful political party in West Virginia passed a multi-pronged resolution on coal & green jobs that included a call for No New Mountaintop Removal Permits. Our generation knows that Mountaintop Removal takes mining coal too far and we have safer ways to mine it as we transition to renewable energies & energy efficiency. This resolution passed in the midst of an above-the-fold article in the Washington Post, the Presidential Campaigns closing in on the May 13th WV Democratic Primary, and a record showing of grassroots involvement in the WV Democratic County Conventions. The political machine in West Virginia is getting scared of what true grassroots organizers are building here in West Virginia and we are in the year of a lifetime to build our movement for justice here!

The February 10th “Young Dems on Kayford” event that brought more than 35 Young Dems onto Kayford Mountain to see the effects of Mountaintop Removal was a crucial event in the organization learning about the issue and taking a stand.

This resolution on Mountaintop Removal was passed as a result of years of building awareness and involvement on the issue. This resolution passed with the solid margin of 32 votes in favor and only 10 votes against (with 2 abstaining votes). The WV Young Democrats have been a focus of education throughout the past year as we organized events to show both the leadership and the membership what Mountaintop Removal is doing to the people and land of Southern (and increasingly Central) WV. The resolution was formed and revised to its final content by a room of high schoolers, college students, deep miners, organizers, and concerned citizens to its final form. This resolution is causing reverberations through the WV Democratic Party and WV politicians (who have long been kinder to the coal industry than citizens) are taking notice.

Continue reading ‘WV Young Democrats Say “No New Mountaintop Removal Permits!”’