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Now!
Tonight something very strange and wonderful
is happening here on this warm fall evening. The sidewalk in
the front of the Harry's Bar at the aging and slightly dilapidated
Hotel Harrington is alive with the sounds of mountain music.
It is so loud the sound is drowning out even the noise of the
downtown traffic. The banjo player is wailing and the guitar
player is picking, strumming and belting out ancient hillbilly
ballads. A small crowd is gathering around the musicians, their
curiosity getting the better of them. These are not your normal
buskers or your normal Washington street musicians. Rather than
facing the audience, the musicians are ignoring them, facing
each other, staring at each others fingers in order to detect
the next chord change. They are reaching for that high and lonesome
harmony that is as much a part of the Appalachians as the rivers
and mountains themselves. You can hear them hollerin' over two
blocks away.
As we listen, a slew of young
activists circulate through the audience and pass out literature
and campaign buttons to the passers-by explaining to them the
dangers of strip mining in the Appalachians and why we they had
come here to Warshington, as the denizens of Appalachia
pronounce the name of our Nation's Capitol. We are all here for
Mountaintop Removal Week with over 60 citizen lobbyist from 13
states who have traveled here to work for passage of H.R. 2719,
the Clean Water Protection Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Frank
Pallone that would prevent the dumping of mine waste into streams
and curtail mountaintop removal. Most of these folks came to
town on their own dime and by this evening had held over 50 meetings
with members of congress.
This morning, Floyd and I,
along with Ed Wiley, a West Virginia grandfather and former coal
miner, and over one hundred supporters marched the final mile
of Ed's epic 455-mile walk from Marsh Fork Elementary School
in Sundial, West Virginia to the steps of the Senate Office Building.
Ed left Charleston on Aug. 2 to raise awareness about the school's
location next door to a coal refuse pond and preparation plant;
and to build public support for the construction of a new school
in a different location.
Marsh Fork Elementary School
is on the front lines of the controversial practice known as
mountaintop removal coal mining. It's students are becoming the
casualties.
An active 1,849-acre mountaintop
removal coalmine surrounds the school area. Marsh Fork Elementary
sits just 225 feet from a Massey Energy coal-loading silo that
releases high levels of coal dust and saturates the air in the
school. Independent tests have shown that coal dust is hazardous
to the health of school children. And a leaking earthen dam holding
back 2.8 billion gallons of toxic coal-sludge is also located
above the school site. What's more, Massey Energy wants to build
another silo. Much to the chagrin of people like Ed Wiley.
One of the more exciting developments
in the fight for Marsh Fork School came last month, when the
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection denied a
permit from Massey Energy to build the second coal silo beside
the school. For the residents of the West Virginia coalfields,
this was a big victory for the community, the kids, and the larger
fight against mountaintop removal. The West Virginia DEP has
twice denied the application to build another coal silo next
to the elementary school. The existing silo has been found to
be even closer to the school than company maps had indicated.
Suddenly Massy no longer seems invincible.
To help pay for a new school,
Ed Wiley began a local fundraising campaign called Pennies of
Promise in an attempt to raise $5 million. He now has a vanload
of pennies in jars and plastic jugs. Ed will find the five million
even if he has to ask five-hundred million people one at a time.
Because of Ed's campaign, and the support he got from folks in
West Virginia and along the way, he has become something of a
symbol, even a hero of the struggle. No one is more qualified
than Ed Wiley to talk about the effects of mountaintop removal
or to represent the people of Appalachia.
At the press conference, which
was well attended by members of the Washington media. Wiley was
joined by U.S. Rep. Pallone (D-NJ); Lois Gibbs, the Love Canal
housewife who alerted the nation to the dangers of toxic communities,
now known as the mother of Superfund; Teri Blanton of Kentuckians
for the Commonwealth; and Mary Anne Hitt of Appalachian Voices.
The press conference was featured on news broadcast across the
state of West Virginia, where over two-thirds of the residents
are opposed to Mountain Top Removal.
Eariler this morning Ed had
hoped to meet with West Virginia Sen. Robert C. Byrd. One of
the purposes of the walk was to seek help from the powerful Senator.
Outside his office Ed announced to the media, "Senator Byrd
is an honorable man and a true Appalachian who cares about the
people of West Virginia," Wiley said. "I hope he will
stand with us to help the children at Marsh Fork Elementary School,
because our children have been sacrificed long enough."
Ed had an appointment to meet
with Byrd's staff, but not with the Senator himself. But after
a few minutes meeting with the staffers, he was summoned into
the inner sanctum of Byrd's spacious office. The two spent nearly
forty-five minutes talking about the school, mountaintop removal
and other issues. Before the meeting was over, both of the West
Virginia natives were on their knees in prayer. Senator Byrd
promised to do what he could to help move the school. He also
issued a press release in which he stated, "I admire the
determination and dedication that Ed and Debbie Wiley have shown,
the Bible teaches that if we have faith of a mustard seed, we
can move mountains. I believe that the Wileys have that faith."
Ed Wiley didn't talk to any
consultants. He didn't even hold a meeting. He just got up one
morning and told his wife Debbie that he was going to walk to
Warshington even if he had to eat grass and drink out of a ditch.
Along the way, he rallied thousands of supporters, garnered media
attention in each town, and received the support he needed to
continue his journey. Now Ed and Debbie are sitting in downtown
Warshington and tapping their feet to some raucus mountain music
and having a well-deserved beer. I think I'll have one with him.
To learn more about how you
can help out, check out the best web site and activist tool ever
created for the Internet; www.iLoveMountains.org. The site features
the National Memorial for the Mountains, an interactive, online
memorial that uses Google Earth technology to show the locations
and tell the stories of the over 450 mountains that have been
destroyed to date. The Memorial is the first comprehensive source
for penetrating the secrecy of these city-sized operations, according
to Mary Anne Hitt, executive director of Appalachian Voices,
the nonprofit organization that developed the site. It features
overlays that bring home the enormous scope of these mining operations:
just one, for example, is comparable to the size of the entire
Washington metro area.
Visitors can watch a video
of entire mountains being blown to pieces. It also has an interview
with actor Woody Harrelson and a download of a new acoustic version
of Bob Dylan's "Blowin in the Wind," performed by music
legend Willie Nelson. Harrelson and fellow actor Edward Norton
are among the many supporters of Wiley's walk to Washington.
Lenny Kolm, my good friend
and someone who has organized over thirty lobby weeks on issues
ranging from the Arctic Refuge to logging Old Growth forests
confided to me that of all the events that he has organized or
attended, Mountain Top Removal weekend topped them all when it
came to the dedication and enthusiasm of this group of people.
I had to agree. It seems to me, with just a few thousand dollars,
Ed and his friends have accomplished more in a few months than
anyone has been able to in the years that Coal Valley residents
have demanded action on this issue. Ed is also working to build
the kind of movement necessary to address not only mountaintop
removal, but the damage that mining and burning coal does to
our planet.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.