Fighting through Fear

Yesterday, I spent most of the day at the office of the Coal River Mountain Watch in Whitesville, WV (Boone County). I interviewed and talked with activists there about their work against the incursions of coal in their communities. Mountaintop Removal Mining operations in this area have devestated the community, contaminating water supplies (residents there can't drink the water in their homes), shifting the foundations of their homes through blasting, and polluting the air with coal dust.

Many things have struck me as I've listened to the stories of the women who are fighting King coal in the region:

1. Fear and intimidation by coal company employees is not a thing of the past. Many of us know of the hired "gun thugs" used by coal companies during unionization battles. Well, companies, namely, Massey Energy, which owns most of the coal operations in central Appalachia, hires workers and residents to intimidate activists. The Coal River Mountain Watch has been infiltrated by these scoundrels, and members have been run off the road by hired hands driving big coal trucks, and verbally threatened. One activist informed me that a man told her that if she didn't watch herself she would end up in an abandoned mine shaft. Another, who is an artist, was painting a mural of mountains on the Coal River Mountain Watch building when a man in a truck stopped by and said "you know, we might just blow up that mountain too."

2. I interviewed one woman (a 78 year old grandmother, no less) who started a project several years ago where she began documenting coal dust in her home. She got lots of people in her community of Sylvester, WV to do the same. They collected from furniture in their homes, water from dehumidifiers etc etc. They tagged and bagged most everything they collected. Well, they filed a lawsuit against Massey Engergy, and actually won. This corporation had to pay them over 400,000 which was split among 126 residents.

3. The propoganda machine employed by Massey Energy is about as big as the machines used to tear off 800 feet of mountain top. One woman, in Inez, KY (the site of a slurry pond spill that dumped 350 million gallons into nearby waterways)told me that coal officials organized a program for her public school (she teaches biology)where they took teachers out into the field, in a day long program where the wined and dined them, and gave them a workshop on how they should teach about the coal industry in their classes. I'm not fucking joking. She said they were treated liked royalty as they ingested propoganda, and instruction on what the kids of Inez, KY should know about their region and coal.

4. Massey's propoganda machine is alive and well in WV too. They run commercials constantly all over the state playing on the fears of job loss to citizens, and other TV ads that stress how important coal is to WV. The WV coal association even uses a front group called "The Friends of Coal" to support their interests. They call themselves a grassroots organization and hand out signs that say "Friends of Coal for residents to put in their yards, stickers to put on their vehicles. Their spokesman is former WVU football coach, Don Nehlen, and on July 4 they are hosting a big party (with fireworks) and bringing in that awful Charlie Daniels Band to enterain all of the friends of coal. Another activist told me that if her group could afford a major publicity machine, and run their own ads, MTR would already be over in WV.

The situation in Appalachia with MTR is quite frightening right now. I asked people how they dealt with the fear and intimidation, and they said they couldn't think about that or they would never get anything done. They have to keep their goals in mind and not succumb to the fear tactics, and the endless propoganda.

More people from outside the region have to care, and have to get involved. The people there need a lot of help from the outside. MTR is getting a lot of attention lately - Oprah magazine just did an article on them, and Vanity Fair has an article about MTR in a recent issue. While I was at the Coal River Mountain Watch office last week there was an Austrialian photographer there who had just sneaked onto one sight and took pictures of the devestation. Yesterday, two people from a German news station came by the office, and one of the activists took them on a tour of the area.

Anyway, my research on this group will first be submitted in an article while I continue to work on a book on the same subject.

Time to decompress,

jb