http://www.fern.org/
http://www.wrm.org.uy/
http://www.sinkswatch.org/
Wild Earth Guardians

THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE
Concerned scientists the world over have developed what is known as the Precautionary Principle. The Precautionary Principle states that, in the face of scientific uncertainty, humyns must take precautionary action. Shift the burden of proof onto the perpetrator. With any proposed course of action (or inaction) that may engender any possible harm to Life, 3 questions must be critically and thoroughly addressed:

-Is this harm preventable?

-Are there any alternatives?

-Do we know enough to act?

If these crucial questions cannot be definitively answered-then we should NOT move forward with the proposed action!

The mission of this working group is to join in all efforts everywhere to preserve, protect, and restore ecosystems and integrated complexes of ecosystems everywhere on Earth in an attempt to stabilize climate and mitigate the effects of climate change that are thus far unavoidable. Too little discussion has been forthcoming regarding the critical role that healthy, fully-functioning natural ecosystems play in influencing, stabilizing, and interacting with local, regional, continental-and ultimately global-climate regimes. Industrial/commercial roadbuilding, clearcutting, mining, drilling, livestock grazing, overharvesting, acid rain, paving, pollution, ozone depletion, urban sprawling-and the subsequent species extinctions-impact climate and weather on all spatial and temporal levels at least as much (if not more so than) “greenhouse gas” emissions. Many of the world’s women and Indigenous Peoples have recognized this fact for many decades (if not centuries)-and more recently so have many farmers, scientists, workers, and activists.

All ecosystems everywhere-however heavily and negatively impacted thus far by human activities-must be protected and preserved at any and all cost through an unfailing no-compromise stance. In addition, concentrated efforts focusing on ecosystem rehabilitation and restoration-on local, regional, continental, and global scales-must also ensue posthaste, to recover and re-wild to as great a degree as possible all impacted ecosystems and ecosystem complexes the world over. Such efforts are equally crucial in human response efforts as “greenhouse gas” reductions and “alternative technology.” There is no legitimate argument against this-certainly not any based on the capitalist myths of “economic and political viability;” in order to destroy this innately selfish soapbox, one only need investigate for oneself the per centage of the U.S. federal budget allocated annually to subsidize the extractive, “development,” and military industrial complexes. The argument that climate change may ultimately “destroy” an ecosystem regardless of human efforts to protect and restore it-allowing investors and industrialists an avenue for justifying their financially-motivated exploitation of such ecosystems-is also innately foolish: global warming may change, even drastically alter, an ecosystem-but it will not destroy it the way human industrial and commercial exploitation invariably does. NO ECOSYSTEM OR SPECIES IS EXPENDABLE! It is imperative to the very survival of human and most other species that we immediately shift these tax subsidies from privatization, wars of conquest, and extraction on public lands (the commons) to restoration on BOTH public & private lands (providing-among other things-mass employment). Now one must wonder why so little is thus far being said about this facet of the global warming issue…

RTNA’s plan of action regarding ecosystem and biodiversity protection, preservation, and restoration is multifaceted. Just as we ally ourselves with campaigns and struggles against the fossil-fuel industry, we also ally ourselves with campaigns and struggles against industrial “forestry”, mining and drilling, agribusiness, road-building, paving/sprawl, motorized “recreation,” factory-trawl fishing, “sport” hunting-and any commercial/ industrial “development” that seeks to profit from ecosystem destruction. These entities are just as guilty as the fossil-fuel interests (who also destroy ecosystems) in causing global warming-& they must be stopped! In addition, RTNA seeks to join or initiate any efforts at meaningful eco-restoration efforts-particularly those based on re-wilding in non-urban areas and greening in urban areas. RTNA seeks to build grassroots efforts aimed at forcing shifts in taxpayer subsidies away from capitalist “development” projects on public lands and toward local and regionally-based eco-restoration and re-wilding projects on public lands that are based on direct public oversight and decision-making as well as upon providing habitat to all native species that they may recover their populations and live as they have for millennia. RTNA works to debunk all “false solutions” to global warming that politicos and business interests try to sell us-and one of these is the myth that we must sacrifice any ecosystem to industrial/commercial interests in order to combat global warming (e.g., “salvage logging for restorative purposes,” dams, genetically-modified tree farms). All land-use decisions must be made based on ecosystem and bio-regional health, integrity, and stability; there is not (nor has their ever been) any place for commodifying land and resources and imposing fictitious political boundaries called “borders” that only divide and devastate living populations-nonhuman and human alike. Ecosystem health, vitality, and integrity is as much a social-justice issue as it is an ecological issue. Decades of exploitative land-use policies brought about the utter destruction of coastal swamp, wetland, and forest ecosystems; when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck, the natural barriers those ecosystems would have provided to dampen the intensity of the storms were largely nonexistent…and we saw what happened-and to whom.

This website will feature articles and essays discussing ecosystem science, ecosystems as they relate to climate stability and weather patterns (technical and non-technical), and actions under- taken to preserve, protect, defend, and/or restore the Earth’s ecosystems.

To get involved w/ RTNA’s Ecosystem Working Group-contact:

stormf5@riseup.net

Earth First! We’ll defend the other planets later.

Links to other orgs working for wilderness, ecosystems, and biodiversity:

Earth First! Journal
WildWest Institute
Alliance for the Wild Rockies
Center for Biological Diversity
Sky Island Alliance
Forest Ethics
Dogwood Alliance
Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project
United Mountain Defense
Heartwood
Global Justice Ecology Project
Green Anarchy

3 BASIC PRINCIPLES

1 – “The structural relations within and between human societies and
their environments form the most complex systems known to science.”
Charles D. Laughlin and Ivan Brady, editors, Extinction and Survival
in Human Populations.

2 – “Making connections is the essence of scientific progress.”
Chris Quigg, “Aesthetic Science,” Scientific American, April 1999

3 – “Ignorance of remote causes disposeth men to attribute all events
to the causes immediate and instrumental: for these are all the
causes they perceive.” Thomas Hobbes

>

> Although there’s been a recent victory against the reopening of the Black Mesa Complex, the Kayenta mine is still operating and elders on the front lines fighting the continued impacts of coal mining and forced relocation efforts are still requesting support.

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> We are writing with a request for direct on-land support on behalf of families of traditional resistance communities of Black Mesa, AZ.. One of the Big Mountain elder matriarchs, Blanche Wilson, the mother of Mae Tso, who hosted the 2008 caravan, passed away yesterday. Please hold her and her family in your thoughts and prayers. Mae and Samuel, two of Blanche’s children, and elders themselves, are living alone at their homesite. They are in much need of support–they will need to take four days away from basic necessities and work for the traditional funeral. Additionally Mae injured her back on Christmas day and has been in pain for the last three weeks and at a limited work capacity; Samuel has been working double what he normally does. There are supporters there now until Wednesday the 20th. The funeral will be after that so, as mentioned, they really need the help at this time.

>

> If you are available for any days from this Wednesday on, please let us know ASAP, so we can tell the family that the homesite and sheep will be covered. Please forward this to anyone you know who could possibly be available to support.

>

> Furthermore, after this year’s Caravan/Fall Wood Run to Black Mesa, BMIS is receiving an unprecedented amount of direct requests for on-land support from elders–we usually have about 2-3 per month and this month we have NINE requests, besides Mae and Samuel Tso. There are several sheepherders on-land right now, but nearly all of them are leaving by the end of the month. February is a difficult month for the elders to live out in the vast canyonlands of Black Mesa in such high altitude in the cold and snow without paved roads and supporters are much appreciated. One of the elders is undergoing knee surgery at the end of January and will be out of commission for several weeks. If you contact us we will give you details.

>

> It is extremely important that we try as hard as we can to have supporters up there to honor these requests and make sure that we continue our support beyond the caravan. If you have come on a caravan or spent time on the land before please consider reconnecting with the struggle and staying with a family requesting support. If you can’t come out put the call out to your community and offer to talk to interested sheep herders about your experience before getting them in touch with us.This is vital to remain connected to the struggle and to show our solidarity. Please consider coming out if at all possible. Let us know, and let anyone else who could possibly come out know.

>

> Forward this widely.

> Many Thanks,

> Black Mesa Indigenous Support Collective

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> http://www.blackmesais.org

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> –

> http://www.blackmesais.org

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> http://www.blackmesais.org

According Judge Robert G. Holt, “OSM violated NEPA [National Environmental Protection Act] by not preparing a supplemental draft EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] when Peabody changed the proposed action. As a result, the Final EIS did not consider a reasonable range of alternatives to the new proposed action, described the wrong environmental baseline, and did not achieve the informed decision-making and meaningful public comment required by NEPA. Because of the defective Final EIS, OSM’s decision to issue a revised permit to Peabody must be vacated and remanded to OSM for further action.”

Wahleah Johns, co-director of Black Mesa Water Coalition, one of the petitioners in the appeal, issued the following statement: “As a community member of Black Mesa I am grateful for Judge Holt’s decision. For 40 years our sacred homelands and people have borne the brunt of coal mining impacts, from relocation to depletion of our only drinking water source. This ruling is an important step towards restorative justice for Indigenous communities who have suffered at the hands of multinational companies like Peabody Energy. This decision is also precedent-setting for all other communities who struggle with the complexities of NEPA laws and OSM procedures in regards to environmental protection. However, we also cannot ignore that irreversible damage of coal mining industries continues on the land, water, air, people and all living things.”

Governor’s office: 1-888-438-2731<br>

<a href=”http://climategroundzero.net/2010/01/manchin_save_mountain_stop_harassment/”>Click here to report your call</a><br><br>

Massey Coal continues to break the law, harassing the two remaining tree sitters with horns at dangerous decibel levels, likely to cause permanent ear damage. This act is violent and can be classified under West Virginia State Code as felony endangerment.<br><br>

West Virginia state police have acknowledged the illegal nature of this act, but have done nothing in response to repeated pleas to state emergency numbers, state and federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, and other legal resources.<br><br>

Yesterday, Governor Manchin said “We will not in any way, shape or form in this state of West Virginia tolerate any violence against anyone on any side.” Massey air horns haven’t stopped. In addition, the sitters overheard the guards talking on the radio about using fire-hoses as an abuse tactic. Getting sprayed with water in sub-freezing temperatures while 60 feet up in the tree would be outright deadly and would prevent them from being able to even safely descend.<br><br>

Call Governor Manchin’s office and ask him to intervene in the violence against the sitters and support the end to mountaintop removal.<br><br>

Governor’s office: 1-888-438-2731<br>

<a href=”http://climategroundzero.net/2010/01/manchin_save_mountain_stop_harassment/”>Click here to report your call</a><br><br>

This abuse must stop. Massey has proven itself to be a criminal corporation, both in it’s policies towards the sitters and the people of the mountains. We need Governor Manchin to protect clean drinking water in West Virginia and nationwide. An end to mountaintop mining will protect the quality of life for Appalachian coalfield residents who face frequent and catastrophic flooding, heavy metals pollution and loss of freshwater streams as a result of mountaintop removal coal mining.<br><br>

What action can you take?<br>

Report your call here and let us know how it went<br>

Tell your friends by forwarding them this email or checking out our Facebook event<br><br>

Eric Blevins and Amber Nitchman are in high spirits, swinging high up in the trees. See <a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/climategroundzero/CoalRiverTreeSit”>photos from their cell phones</a> and <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/user/ClimateGndZero”>watch videos of the activists talking about this fight</a>. <br><br>

Thanks for contributing to this strong national effort — we all live downstream.<br><br>

The Climate Ground Zero team<br><br><br>

<i>Read about Governor Manchin’s statement yesterday on escalating violence in the coal fields on Coal Tattoo:<br>

<a href=”http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2010/01/25/manchin-calls-for-calm-in-the-coalfields/#more-1732″>http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2010/01/25/manchin-calls-for-calm-in-the-coalfields/#more-1732</a><br><br>

Read the day 5 update on Climate Ground Zero’s website:<br>

<a href=”http://climategroundzero.net/2010/01/coal-river-tree-sit-day-5-inside-the-action/”>http://climategroundzero.net/2010/01/coal-river-tree-sit-day-5-inside-the-action/</a></i>

[Brazilian women rally against deforestation. (Credit:Courtesy of WRM Uruguay)]Brazilian women rally against deforestation. (Credit:Courtesy of WRM Uruguay)

According to critics, corporations are logging natural forests in these South American countries and transforming their grasslands to plant eucalyptus, pine and other non-indigenous fast-growing trees – which consume enormous quantities of water and degrade the soil – to develop large-scale wood, pulp and paper production.

However, in view of the coming Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15), to be held in Copenhagen on Dec. 7-18, forestry companies are saying that afforestation can play a role in mitigating global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.

Backed by governments and international bodies, they’re vying for tree plantations to be considered carbon sinks – reservoirs that capture and store more carbon dioxide than they release, thus offsetting greenhouse gas emissions.

In the last few weeks, rural women’s organisations and environmental groups in the region tried without success to make themselves heard above forestry companies. With this aim, they issued a joint statement in the framework of the Thirteenth World Forestry Congress, held Oct. 18-23 in Buenos Aires.

This event, generally held every six years since 1926, is organised by the government of the host country under the auspices of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). This year’s edition brought together some 7,000 participants, including government delegates and representatives from the private sector, students, experts and members of environmental organisations from more than 160 countries.

Under the theme “Forests in Development: A Vital Balance”, participants discussed topics ranging from bio-energy to climate change, sustainable development and the need for synergies across sectors to identify green solutions to the global warming crisis, and concluded that forests – including tree plantations – can contribute to curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

In an interview with IPS, Claudia Peirano, of the Argentine Forestry Association (AFOA), an industry group, contended that naturally-occurring forests can no longer be sourced to cover the growing demand for wood, and that instead harvested forests must be expanded.

“The loss of native forests is not caused by forestry plantations; it is the result of agricultural expansion,” Peirano said, underlining that only three percent of the world’s forests are harvested. According to forestry companies, this surface area needs to be expanded to adequately respond to demand without fuelling deforestation.

In this sense, the Congress ended with “a clear consensus on two goals: achieving zero deforestation by 2020, and finding alternatives for greater yield in wood production,” Peirano said.

But the women who issued the statement disagree.

“We, rural and urban women, reject the expansion of monoculture tree plantations and pulp and paper production projects, which have especially affected the grassland ecosystems of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay,” they declared in their statement.

Promoting plantations as forests is “misleading,” said the rural women’s organisations and environmental groups, which pointed to the “countless negative impacts” that these projects have on the lives of rural families, and particularly on women, who are “disempowered” by the expansion of these single-crop plantations.

Among the many negative aspects of the “unsustainable” development model followed by the forestry industry, they denounced that companies pressure families into selling their farmland, that the industry creates few jobs for women, that tree plantations are depleting water resources, and that these changes have significant social impacts, such as a breakdown in the social fabric, leading to domestic violence and sexual harassment among the affected communities.

The document, ignored by the participants in the Congress, is signed by the World March of Women (WMW) – an international feminist action network that combats poverty and gender violence -, the Peasant Women’s Movement of Brazil, the Brazilian chapter of Friends of the Earth (FOE), and the Centre for Environmental Studies.

Three different realities, same impact

On behalf of Argentina, the statement was backed by GRAIN, a grassroots organisation that works to stem the expansion of soybean monoculture, and on behalf of Uruguay it was supported by the local FOE chapter, the Rural Women’s Movement and the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) – an international network based in Montevideo.

Interviewed by IPS, Cintia Barenho, a biologist and environmentalist with WMW, said that the Brazilian states most affected by eucalyptus, pine and black acacia monoculture plantations are Bahía, Espírito Santo, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, Paraná and São Paulo, in the country’s eastern and southern regions.

While no data is available to determine the exact extent of this expansion, it is estimated that more than five million hectares in Brazil are covered with tree plantations, which have replaced natural forests and grasslands.

The advance of the tree plantations has also affected the livelihoods of rural families, indigenous peoples and “quilombola” communities (Afro-Brazilian settlements originally established by runaway slaves before abolition in Brazil), dispersing them and pushing them off their lands.

For example in Espírito Santo, the Aracruz Celulosa company has planted 128,000 hectares of eucalyptus on indigenous and quilombola territory since it launched its agro-industry project in the area decades ago. According to an investigation by WRM, of the 40 villages that existed, only seven are left, and of the 100 quilombola communities formed by 10,000 families, only 37 remain with a total of 1,200 families.

Women interviewed for the study – which resulted in the book “Brazil: Women and Eucalyptus: Stories of Life and Resistance” – said they had suffered severe droughts, abrupt temperature changes, severe loss of biodiversity, food crop reduction, drying up of water sources, and degradation of soil fertility.

Peirano, representing the forestry industry, conceded that “any intervention entails an impact,” but said “there’s a great deal of myth” in the claim that harvested species demand excessive amounts of water. “If you plant eucalyptus in an area with an annual rainfall of 800 millimetres, the trees won’t tap the groundwater,” he said.

Barenho underscored that in rural areas of these Brazilian states, “a lot of pressure is placed on families to sell their land to pulp and paper companies,” which “fuels the exodus of rural populations” to the cities, driving up unemployment, poverty and violence.

She also said that this situation represents a step back for agrarian reform efforts and dampens the development of family agriculture. Monoculture plantations “generate few jobs for local communities and women; the numbers are negligible,” she added.

Moreover, working conditions are precarious, and labour contracts are temporary. Barenho pointed to the social impact of the tree plantations, as the gender division of labour imposed by the industry – with women working primarily in greenhouses, under exploitative conditions, and men joining work gangs that move to different sites on the plantations – breaks up families, spreads prostitution and generates rampant sexual harassment.

Barenho is currently heading a study on the impact of forestry plantations, entitled “The European Union’s Role in the Disempowerment of Women of the South through the Conversion of Local Ecosystems into Tree Plantations”.

Raquel Gilmet, of the Uruguayan Rural Women organisation, spoke with IPS about the impact of these single-crop plantations in her country. “Small family farmers like me are surrounded (by these tree plantations), leaving us with nowhere to go. Trees are closing in on people,” she said.

Uruguay has an estimated million plus hectares of harvested forests. That total may not seem like much compared to the country’s total surface area of 17.6 million hectares, but it has a significant impact on natural ecosystems, say the rural women’s organisations and environmental groups.

Gilmet used to have an organic garden in the southeastern province of Soriano, but said that now “clean farming is impossible” due to the expansion of soybean monoculture – which requires heavy use of agrochemicals – in the area, which has swallowed up grasslands.

Outside of the city of Mercedes, the capital of Soriano province, forestry plantations are depleting water sources and degrading the soil.

“It’s alarming how (these plantations) have expanded here. You see more and more farms ruined and abandoned. The government says it was the farmers’ choice, but it’s doing nothing about the long-term consequences this has for water and soil,” she complained.

Gilmet said that forestry is promoted as “an alternative job opportunity” and at first “people are won over.” But then they realise that there are jobs for only a few men. “Women are left behind, alone with their children, with little money, and many end up poor and are forced to migrate to the cities,” she said.

Also in Uruguay, WRM member Elizabeth Díaz said that depicting harvested forests as carbon sinks, like forestry companies proposed at the World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires, is “ludicrous.”

To combat climate change “we need to cut emissions drastically in every country, find alternative energy sources and protect forests, not dwell on how to offset emissions,” she said to IPS.

Tree monocultures have grown by more than a million hectares in Argentina, and a significant expansion is projected for the coming years, under the auspices of the government, which accepts the idea that harvested forests contribute to combating climate change.

According to FAO data, 13 million hectares of forests are felled every year around the world. This deforestation causes more than 17 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for heating up the atmosphere and altering the global climate. Brazil is one of the largest emitters of gases from deforestation and loss of grasslands.

by Marcela Valente

Interpress News Agency

MOBILIZE! – NOVEMBER 30, 2009

As the world’s biggest companies and their friends in government continue to fight a transition to more just and sustainable ways of living, climate change threatens to turn our world upside down with water shortages, crop failures, sea level rise and ecosystem collapse.  A million species face extinction by the end of the century, and the people who have contributed least to the problem will continue to be the hardest hit.  What can be done at this critical juncture, with our future at stake?

Throughout history, social change has come about when regular people get fed up with business as usual, get organized, and take to the streets. If we leave climate solutions up to politicians and corporations, then we will lose – not just a political battle, but the life-support systems of the planet.  Time is running out to avert the worst impacts of climate change: the time to act is now.

A broad coalition of organizations working for social, ecological, racial and economic justice has come together under the banner of the Mobilization for Climate Justice. Join us as we organize mass action on climate change on November 30, 2009!  November 30 (N30) is significant both because it immediately precedes the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen and is the ten-year anniversary of the protests that shut down of the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, demonstrating the incredible power of collective action.

Every indication is that any agreement that emerges from Copenhagen will be nothing more than business as usual—sacrificing real emissions reductions in favor of market-based approaches that enhance corporate profits while delaying a transition away from fossil fuels. The current approach to climate change in the UN, and in the US Congress, is based on the creation of a new market in carbon emissions.  Carbon trading (aka “cap and trade”) and carbon offsets do not address the root causes of global warming, nor do they reduce emissions.  They are designed by and for corporations, and are a dangerous distraction that should be abandoned.

We urgently need to implement real solutions like ending excessive consumption, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, re-localizing production and consumption, and drastically reducing greenhouse emissions.  We must also protect the rights of workers, displaced peoples, and others affected by the transition.

In recent months, people of the world have taken valiant action for climate solutions. On Oct. 24th, people in 181 countries staged over 5,200 actions calling for global action on climate change. And on November 4, African delegates walked out of pre-Copenhagen negotiations in Barcelona – demanding that rich countries commit to deeper and faster emissions cuts – while European activists used civil disobedience to disrupt the talks.

And now, we’re asking you to join us in taking the next step – a global day of action for climate justice on Monday, November 30, 2009. Take the day off, get together with friends, and take a stand for real, just and effective solutions to the climate crisis!

__________________

WHAT YOU CAN DO ON N30:

Several actions are already being planned for November 30 – and many more will be coming soon – so if there’s an action happening in your city or region, we urge you to join it!  See the MCJ site for a map of N30 actions across the country and across the world.

If there isn’t an action being organized in your town, organize one! If you’re already involved in a campaign against a company that’s contributing to climate injustice, organize an action on against them November 30.  You can submit actions by clicking HERE.

If you’re organizing an action from scratch, we’d suggest you go after one of the following companies: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Chevron, BP, or American Electric Power. We picked these six companies because they’re all, through their investments, lobbying, and day to day business, going out of their way to obstruct real solutions to the climate crisis.  For more info about them, see our Corporate Criminals page.

Corporations like these will keep trying to distract us with false solutions, but we will send them a loud, clear message: Our climate is not your business!

Help us spread the word – we’ll see you in the streets!

If you can’t make it out, please consider helping others take action by making a donation.

______________________________________

The Mobilization for Climate Justice is: Alliance of Community Trainers, Art in Action, Asian-Pacific Environmental Network, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Bay Localize, Beehive Design Collective, Burmese American Democratic Alliance, Communities for a Better Environment, Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, Direct Action to Stop the War, Earth First!, Eco-Cycle, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Environment and Social Development Organization, Environmental Justice &

Climate Change Initiative, Enviro Show, Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, Forest Ethics, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Global Exchange, Global Justice Ecology Project, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Headrush, Indigenous Environmental Network, Institute for Social Ecology, International Forum on Globalization, International Rivers, Justice in Nigeria Now!, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Movement Generation, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Pacific Environment, Poor Magazine, PR for People & the Planet, Rainforest Action Network, Richmond Mayor’s Taskforce on Environmental Justice and Health, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Rising Tide North America, Ruckus Society, SmartMeme, Solidarity, Uganda Network on Toxic Free Malaria Control, West County Toxics Coalition, Women of Color United, Youth In Focus, Zero Waste Vancouver, and 350.org

These nonviolent protestors have taken this action to bring attention to the extreme danger facing residents of the Coal River Valley from blasting near the Brushy Fork Impoundment. They plan to stay locked down until law enforcement removes them.

The banner hanging on the drill rig two protestors are locked down to.

The banner hanging on the drill rig two protestors are locked down to.

Resident of Rock Creek, W Va., Delbert Gunnoe, stated his concerns with the blasting, “You know when they put a blast over there, and it shakes the windows over here, at what, ¾-a-mile distance, imagine what it does over there.” Gunnoe continued, “if [the impoundment] did bust…what would be the destruction? The town of Whitesville would no longer exist.”

The four are fearful of the blasting that Massey Energy began in late October. These blasts are 200 feet from the Brushy Fork Impoundment, permitted to hold nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. The impoundment sits atop miles of hollow, abounded underground mines, further endangering its integrity. By Massey’s own estimates, roughly 998 people will die should the dam break. The emergency evacuation plan states that a 40-foot wall of sludge, cresting at 72 feet, will flow through the valley, reaching 20-feet-high about 15 miles down the road. Apart from the initial flood, the impact of this potential spill would be felt along the Coal River’s 88 miles.

“The Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment keeps residents of the Coal River Valley up at night, waiting for eight billion gallons of toxic coal slurry to come rushing towards them,” said Dea Goblirsch, one of the two locked down. “I don’t know how Massey executives sleep soundly at night.”

Hydrologist, Dr. Rick Eades spoke of concerns about the stability of the dam as blasting occurs. He questioned “blasting where underground mines existed in the Eagle coal seam, the possibilities for adversely affecting near-surface bedrock in a way that could possibly enhance pathways for slurry to be released via the subsurface and bypass the dam.”

The concern is that slurry will break into underground mine shafts and blow out through old mine openings on the side of the mountain. This potentiality for Coal River Mountain mirrors the cause of the world’s largest slurry spill which occurred in Martin County, Ky. In 2000, 250 million gallons of slurry broke forth from a 2.2-billion-gallon impoundment, killing nearly all life in the Big Sandy River. Its impact reached all the way to the Ohio River, about 100 miles away.

A drill rig on a mountaintop removal site.

A drill rig on a mountaintop removal site.

Earlier this week, EPA sent out a letter to Marfork Coal Co., a subsidiary of Massey Energy Co., airing concerns about the absence of a valley fill permit, and requesting an extensive amount of information concerning the mountaintop removal operation on the Bee Tree site.

In note of this, Nick Martin, currently locked down, said, “The EPA’s recent action proves that the communities’ concerns about this site are shared at the highest levels of government.”

Matt Louis-Rosenberg, a Climate Ground Zero activist, adds, “Coal River Wind attempted to get a meeting with the governor for a year and it took people sitting in his office to get him to sit down and meet with concerned community members, just like it takes our actions up on Coal River Mountain to get the federal government to step in.”

The concern showed by the EPA reflects what the residents of the Coal River Valley have known for a long time; the Brushy Fork Impoundment is putting lives in danger, and the blasting on Coal River Mountain only increases that danger. The protestors on the Bee Tree site are putting out a call to action to save Coal River Mountain and protect all those who would be impacted by a catastrophe there. This action fits into a larger fight against mountaintop removal in Appalachia.

On the whole, Gunnoe’s sentiment was, “Don’t like much about Obama, but he’ll have one heck of a supporter if he stops mountaintop mining.”

Note: More information available at http://www.facebook.com/l/c7424;climategroundzero.org.

http://www.bidder70.org/news/view/136168/

This is one of the 2 individuals who placed false bids on Utah public-lands wilderness that was being auctioned off to the fossil-fuel drilling consortium for taxpayer-subsidized plunder. He faces federal charges-& RTNA, EF! & others are coming to his defense.

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