Saving Coal River Mountain: wind mills, not toxic spills

Last week I blogged about the ongoing saga of Coal River Mountain. Today, residents of Coal River Valley took their anti-mountaintop removal struggle one step further:

Residents of the Coal River Valley, accompanied by supporters from across Appalachia, took a stand this morning against the impending destruction of their mountain in the name of coal. Five activists with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice chained themselves to an excavator and a bulldozer at the Massey operation near Pettus, West Virginia.

Protests began this morning and will continue throughout the day. More from ILoveMountains.org:

Beginning at 11 a.m., demonstrators will be blocking access to the roads that Massey Energy’s equipment will use to prepare Coal River Mountain for blasting beginning this morning. Others will be peacefully (and legally) protesting the blasting nearby on a public roadway. A public rally will be held at 1:00 p.m. today.

The slogan displayed on the protesters’ banner “Windmills Not Toxic Spills,” stems from residents’ and activists’ concern over the safety of Massey’s plans for blasting, which include sites over former underground mines beside a nine billion gallon sludge dam full of toxic coal waste.

The "toxic spills" bit refers of course to the recent toxic coal sludge spills in Tennessee and Alabama--not to mention all the other lovely health hazards brought on by coal mining, particularly MTR. I can't imagine the wind farm that Coal River Wind wants to build would increase the risk of kidney disease by 70% in Coal River Valley. But blowing up the mountain most likely would.

Visit ILoveMountains.org to keep up with the struggle for Coal River Mountain, and show them some love while you're there by donating or spreading the word about their work. And you can still send a message to Congress through our website--no new dirty coal plants!