Glen owes $518 in court costs, which he needs to pay before he is released.  If court costs are not paid before May 7th, Glen will be kept in Smith County Jail for 5 additional days.   For every additional day that Glen remains in jail, Smith County will credit him $100 towards payment of the court costs.

As a for-profit private jail, Smith County Jail makes more than $100 a day on Glen for everyday that he is incarcerated.   For this reason (and because jail sucks,) Glen would like to pay his court costs before his set release date and get out of jail on May 7 th.

Please Donate to help Glen get out of jail as soon as it is possible.

Glen is doing alright in jail, he calls and checks in regularly.   The jail took 4 extra days to give him the books that we sent him, but he has them now and is spending most of his time reading.   He has commissary, so he is eating enough to keep his belly full.  He has gotten over the cold that he got right after getting into jail, along with most of the other guys in his pod that were also sick.

Thank you all for the support that you’ve shown to our comrade in jail!

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Glen Collins is in Smith County Jail in Texas tonight after pleading guilty to charges of trespassing and illegal dumping stemming from his blockade of the Keystone XL pipeline last December.  In one of the most striking actions in the Tar Sands Blockade campaign, Glen locked himself with Matt Almonte to a concrete barrel inside the KXL pipeline.  He was sentenced to 60 days in jail – the longest sentence of the three activists arrested that day.  We are currently waiting to find out how the 3 weeks Glen spent in jail following his action will be counted against his sentence.  Due to the overwhelming weirdness of the Texas legal system, it’s uncertain how much time he has left to serve.

Glen has checked in from jail and is doing fine as far as jail goes.  We are supporting him in every way we can from up here in WV.  To help support Glen, please donate to the RAMPS general fund which we are using to pay for collect calls from jail, commissary and sending him books to help pass the time.

Glen took action in Texas as a part of our deep commitment to true solidarity, made of action, not words across all struggles against extraction.  As he said at the time, “I’m barricading this pipe with Tar Sands Blockade today to say loud and clear to the extraction industry that our communities and the resources we depend on for survival are not collateral damage.  This fight in East Texas against tar sands exploitation is one and the same as our fight in the hollers of West Virginia. Dirty energy extraction doesn’t just threaten my home; it threatens the collective future of the planet.”

There is now overwhelming scientific evidence that coal–and mountaintop removal in particular–is poisoning the people of Appalachia. Just one of dozens of recent peer-reviewed studies tell us that the rate of children born with birth defects is 42% higher in mountaintop removal communities.  The evidence is likewise clear that the coal carbon bomb locked underneath Appalachia’s mountains make up one of the biggest American accelerators of climate change. NASA’s former lead climate scientist tells us “coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet.”

I refuse to be silent, to sit back, when the US treats its own beloved state of West Virginia as a colony for King Coal. We can do better. And we must.

I am a current resident of the southern coalfields of WV. Though I hail from Vermont. We share the same ridge-line. We are all connected. My actions here pale in comparison to what happens when the Green Mountain State stands up strong for what’s becoming the Mountaintop Removal State. I invite my fellow Vermonters to join us in solidarity this Summer and beyond.

WV has a bright, clean energy future, if we seize it. Last month, 100% of the new US electricity generated was solar power. We share the same sun as the rest of the country; let’s tap into it. We are ranked as the 49th state when it comes to energy efficiency. It’s time to fight to be #1: creating thousands of jobs that save neighbors money, without the risk of black lung.

King Coal and the fossil fuel and extreme energy corporations are digging in with all they’ve got to reap the last profits from wrecking our planet. It’s time for us to dig in too. With resolve, solidarity, and love.

Rumor has it we are in store for quite a fearless Summer of resistance. I like to think that Summer’s spirit may be already here.

UPDATE:

Joe and David were charged in Charleston Municipal Court with trespassing, obstruction, and unlawful assembly.

Their bails were set at $1,686 each.

Joe has been bailed out.

David  has been taken to South Central Regional Jail.

Tips on how to support our folks in jail.

Please donate to either our bail fund or our general fund to keep the momentum rolling.

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Joe Solomon and David Baghdadi locked together disrupting the opening plenary of the ARIES symposium. Police cleared the room.

Charleston, W.Va. — Today two protesters disrupted the first symposium held by the Appalachian Research Initiative in Environmental Science (ARIES), a coal industry funded research consortium.

Joe Solomon and David Baghdadi marched into the opening session of the “Environmental Considerations in Energy Production” Symposium, locked themselves together, and started chanting “Coal kills, science lies.”  They also played recordings of the late Judy Bonds and Larry Gibson, long-time leaders in the fight against strip-mining.  The plenary panel included the top state mining regulators from West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky, including WV Dept. of Environmental Protection.

Joe and David said they would unlocked if even one West Virginia citizen was allowed to speak on the panel.  Symposium organizers chose instead to clear the room, call the Charleston Police and have the two arrested.  More protesters outside the symposium sought to highlight the questionable nature of research produced with coal industry money.

Protesters outside the ARIES conference confronting industry funded science at the Charleston Marriott

“This is just another example of the coal industry cynically trying to muddy the waters, distort the science and delay the inevitable,” said Junior Walk of Boone Co., WV who attended the protest, “Truly independent scientists and Appalachian citizen’s daily experiences both have proven strip mining damages community health, local economies and local watersheds.  It’s time for action.”

The protesters today were acting in solidarity with Appalachian residents that are at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Regions 3 and 4 in Philadelphia and Atlanta today to demand the EPA issue a “conductivity rule”.

Over three years the EPA has released independently reviewed science clearly linking higher conductivity from strip mines with damage to overall stream health.  Citizens’ groups across Appalachia have been calling on the EPA to translate this science into an enforceable, numeric limit.

ARIES is a multi-university effort “to engage in detailed studies of the environmental impacts of the mining, gas and energy sectors in Appalachia, focusing on both upstream (mining, drilling, and processing) and downstream (water, land and air) issues” funded by 15 million dollars from corporate sponsors including Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal, Natural Resource Partners, TECO Coal, Patriot Coal, Cliffs Natural Resources, Mepco, Norfolk Southern and CSX.  The project is directed by Virginia Tech’s Center for Coal and Energy.  The Center director Dr. Michael Karmis made the true purpose of the ARIES project clear at a September 2011 meeting of the Society of Mining Professors.

“”The coal industry needs help,” said Karmis, citing the industry as “under a major attack” from “unreasonable regulations” based on “questionable science,” “false assertions” and “self-serving interests.”

The very first “Technical Bulletin” published by ARIES promoted a study of a single stream in the Virginia coalfields that purported to refute volumes of data linking conductivity and impaired streams.

“This country has seen these same dirty tricks before from the lead, tobacco, and asbestos industries.  The industry funds scientists to create just enough doubt to delay strong government action.  We won’t be fooled again and we won’t let the coal industry get away with it,” said Joe Solomon.

Read more about ARIES in this excellent article by Ken Ward Jr.

Two actions in one day – MJS 2012

5 activists arrested for Boarding a Coal Barge

Join us for our 9th Mountain Justice Summer Action Training Camp.  This year, it’s time to fan the flames of resistance to dirty energy, and put an end to MTR once and for all, while continuing to support bottom up economic transition for a brighter Appalachia.

MJS is a place to learn skills, expand on the ones you already have, strengthen connections in networked social movements for Justice, meet new allies and take action to stop the destruction of Appalachia.

MJS is a week-long program of education, workshops, discussions, entertainment, and trainings to prepare activists of all ages and walks of life to join the movement to end MTR and to help promote environmental justice for Appalachia and beyond.   There will also be opportunities to learn about community organizing, non-violent civil disobedience, Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining and other topics including Appalachian Culture, anti-oppression theory, and Anti-extraction movement building.  There will also be a training for trainers track and a street medic training,

We can’t wait and look forward to seeing you soon!

Register Now

The movement against extreme energy and extraction in Appalachia is uniting like never before.  This morning, over a hundred coalfield and gasfield activists and youth allies from across the country stormed the Capitol building in Charleston, WV, and spoke clearly and in one voice against the industries which are poisoning communities.

The protest started out in the Capitol courtyard and was led by local residents.

Deirdre, an activist visiting from the Pennsylvania gasfields, spoke to the crowd:

“We are here to show that we are united and saying ‘no’ to all dirty and deadly industries. What we want is a clean and healthy economy in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and beyond, an economy that doesn’t poison our water, toxify our air, sicken our bodies and fracture our communities… The West Virginia governor, just like our governor in Pennsylvania, has blood on his hands. They have followed the orders of polluting industries. They have acted as traitors to the people who elected them.”

Next, Dustin Steele of Mingo County, West Virginia, took the megaphone: “A few months ago, a delegation of coalfield residents like myself tried to meet with the governor to talk about economic diversification, about preventing the boom and bust cycle that’s afflicted West Virginia for the past 125 years, that’s left our people addicted to drugs and with some of the highest poverty rates in the nation.”

Dustin echoed the late Judy Bonds to drive their point home:

“If coal is so great, why are all these hillbillies so poor?”

Activists then took the main stairs up into the capitol, and led chants inside the capitol rotunda. As their voices echoed through the heart of the building, a banner was unfurled over the balcony, which read, “Support the People, not the Polluters.”

Fired up, the crowd marched to the entrance of the governor’s office, chanting, “Hey, Governor Tomblin, stop mountain bombing!”.

Dustin White, of Boone County, took the megaphone and reminded us why we were there.

“It is not our patriotic duty to die for gas or coal. We will stand up and demand a better West Virginia.  We will fight.  We will fight for clean air.  We will fight for clean water. We will fight for our history and our future.  And one day we will win.”

Junior Walk, also of Boone County, made it clear that the governor could expect to see more of these protests outside of his office. “We will be back in more numbers until this stops.  We’re not gonna stop.”

Activists at today’s protest also expressed their anger at a recent onslaught of proposed legislation, which would undercut West Virginia’s already meek pollution control standards, such as HB 2579, which would slash water safeguards for selenium poisoning. Protesters pointed to the all-but-defeated resource planning bill (HB 2803), which would encourage the use of energy efficiency measures to create jobs and meet electricity demand, as a far more appropriate course of action for the state legislature.

This rally was just the beginning of a spring and summer of escalating action against extreme energy that is being planned in Appalachia and around the nation. If you feel inspired to get involved, sign up on RAMPS website here. And stay tuned for Mountain Justice Summer!

Included at the protest were many students from campus groups helping to lead fossil fuel divestment campaigns, included many who recently attended the Swarthmore PowerUp! Convergence.

To watch the full video of today’s powerful action: click here.  For more photos: click here.

Join us this Friday in Charleston for a rally to demand a bright future for West Virginia – not one that caters to the destruction of our mountains and fracking of our waters.

Our state is in a critical moment.  We have a choice.  We can double down on destructive and declining coal industry and another boom and bust energy industry or we can chart a new path to a diverse, healthy, sustainable economy.   Instead of embracing calls to create a Citizens Advisory Council on Economic Diversification, a WV Future Fund or job-creating energy efficiency policies, corrupt politicians have been championing corporate interests.  From the attempt to rollback selenium standards, the new threats to sue the EPA , and the continued refusal to address the damage hydrofracking is doing across our state, the government of West Virginia has shown us where they stand.  They stand side by side with the big money interests and the destructive industries of gas and coal.

It’s time for us to stand together — the movements rising to save our communities from the onslaughts on mountain blasting for coal and fracking for gas.

We’re outraged, and sick and tired of being sick from nasty chemicals in our water and tired of asking for the peoples’ voices to matter. It’s our time to show the WV government where our interests are: in the health and well-being for all of our communities.  It is beyond time we demand that our state government work for the benefit of all West Virginians.

Join us this Friday, March 15th at 11 am in the CAPITOL COURTYARD where we will take our demands straight inside to these corrupt politicians.

No more fracking, no more strip mining!  We want a new economy for our state.  One that doesn’t trade clean air, clean water, and the health of our people for a handful of jobs that won’t last.  One that doesn’t devastate our communities with boom and bust economic cycles and can provide safe, healthy jobs for generations to come.

It has never been more clear that our government is failing us. Join us this Friday outside the statehouse to show your resolve for a future worth fighting for.

Over one hundred supporters gathered at the facility, protesting Greenhunter’s plans to increase capacity for toxic frack waste dumping in Ohio. Greenhunter is seeking approval from the Coast Guard to ship frack waste across the Ohio River via barge at a rate of up to half a million gallons per load. The Ohio River is a drinking source for more than 5 million people, including residents of Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Test results from multiple frack waste samples reveal high levels of benzene, toluene, arsenic, barium, and radium, among other carcinogenic and radioactive chemicals.

“Our governor, legislature, and regulatory agencies have all failed in their obligation to protect Ohioans from the predatory gas industry,” said Ebert. “Greenhunter wants to use our water sources as dumping grounds for their toxic, radioactive waste. We are here to send a message that the people of Ohio and Appalachia will not sit idly by and watch our homes be turned into a sacrifice zone!”

Frack waste dumping has generated resistance across Ohio, including direct actions disrupting waste disposal operations from Youngstown to Athens County. The waste is injected underground into over 170 wells statewide, contaminating water and causing numerous earthquakes across the state from Marietta to Ashtabula, most notably a 4.0 earthquake in Youngstown. Surface spills are commonplace across Ohio, including the recently uncovered intentional dumping of an estimated hundreds of thousands of gallons of frack waste into the Mahoning River.

“Fracking chemicals and cancer go hand in hand,” said Teresa Mills of the Buckeye Forest Council, a grassroots Ohio organization seeking a ban on frack waste injection. “Greenhunter plans to recklessly endanger the drinking water of millions of residents of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and beyond. How many kids have to get cancer before we decide that saturating Ohio’s rivers and aquifers with toxic waste is not worth it? We need a ban on injection wells to protect our air, our water, and our children.”

Other groups participating in Tuesday’s action include Tar Sands Blockade, Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival (RAMPS), a coalition of indigenous leaders including representatives from No Line 9 and the Unis’tot’en Camp, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, and Earth First! chapters from across the country. Tuesday’s action is the latest in a series of escalated acts of resistance to destructive extractive industries. On Monday, Pennsylvanians disrupted construction of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline in the Delaware State Forest. In January, Navajo residents from Black Mesa, Arizona joined with Appalachians to protest strip mining at the headquarters of Peabody Energy. International resistance to tar sands mining has continued to escalate from the Tar Sands Blockade in Texas and Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance in Oklahoma, to the Unist’ot’en Camp in Wet’suwet’en Territories.

“I am here because the struggle against frack waste dumping in Ohio is the same as our resistance to the blasting of the mountains in my backyard in West Virginia,” said Kim Ellis of RAMPS. “Until we put a stop to poisonous and exploitative extractive practices everywhere, we will continue to fight.”

###Appalachia Resist is a campaign of resistance to the poisoning and exploitation of Appalachia. For more information, go to: www.appalachiaresist.wordpress.com; Twitter: @AppalResist

Sometimes coming together is hard. To be honest, marches in circles around DC aren’t really our style. But more important than what we did or where we walked on Sunday was that stood in solidarity with so many others from so many distant corners of the movement for environmental justice. Mountaintop removal is, among many other things, a climate issue. The climate crisis demands that humans come together in a way that we never have before, which means disciplining ourselves to a unity that defies many of the natural lines of affinity that we have been able to rally behind throughout the rest of history.

Just as all of us need to be a part of the climate movement, the climate movement must arrive hand-in-hand with all other forms of justice. We hope that the climate movement refuses to be seduced by the lies that those who profit from killing our planet and its inhabitants try to tell us. No “green” technology will allow our species to eternally expand its consumption, or allow the rich to eternally expand their profits. Many false solutions will be tossed at the climate movement to distract us; one sign of these will be that they make the poor bear the burdens of change and allow the accumulation of capital to continue. Climate justice will only be realized as an equalizing force, realistically inseparable from social justice, economic justice, and justice for nonhuman creatures.

Activists were arrested distributing this flier near Peabody CEO Boyce’s apartment

Two activists were arrested for distributing this flier near the apartment of Peabody Energy CEO Greg Boyce on Tuesday inside the Chase Park Plaza hotel and apartment complex. The activists were charged with disturbing the peace and released after eight hours in custody.

Earlier that morning, a small group known as the “Chase Park Plaza Committee for Non-Evil” leafletted inside the building’s parking garage, posting warnings to tenants and guests that Boyce, a “known climate criminal,” resides inside the building. The flier states: “Mr. Boyce’s crimes, while too extensive and storied to detail completely here, reveal a legacy of gross disregard for the city of St. Louis, workers’ rights, human life, and the future of the planet as a whole,” and features criticism of Peabody’s complicity in the forced relocation of Dineh (Navajo) families from their ancestral homeland in Black Mesa, Arizona. Activists also used the flier to highlight Peabody’s efforts to shirk on their obligations to retired coal miners, as well as the massive $61 million tax break that Peabody received from the city of St. Louis in 2010.

You can support continued direct action against extraction by making a generous donation to the RAMPS legal fund.

After nearly 300 fliers had been distributed, two members of the Chase Park Plaza Committee for Non-Evil were tackled by at least ten hotel employees. The activists, who had not received an order to leave the property, were then ziptied around their wrists and legs by hotel security and forcibly detained until police arrived. Security used chokehold grips on the activists, and one activist could be seen bleeding from his nose on the floor of the hotel lobby as a result of an injury sustained during the assault. Though Missouri state law only authorizes private security to administer “citizen’s arrests” in response to felony offenses, St. Louis police refused multiple requests by the detained activists to file a complaint against the security officials involved in the detention.

“The inconvenience we experienced today is literally nothing compared to the forty years of genocidal onslaught that Peabody has wrought upon the Dineh people,” said one of the arrested activists who wished to remain anonymous. “The executives who profit intensely from the constant destruction of our planet are hiding out in St. Louis, Phoenix, Denver, and all throughout the corporate zones of America. We refuse to be intimidated by their violence and will not be deterred from holding the Greg Boyces of this world accountable for their atrocities.”

Tuesday’s confrontation was the latest in a series of recent actions targeting coal companies in St. Louis. On Tuesday, January 22, seven activists locked themselves to a 500-pound potted plant in the office of ArchCoal, demanding an end to strip mining in Appalachia. The following Friday, impacted community members from Black Mesa and West Virginia joined forces with allies across the nation in a rally outside Peabody headquarters to draw attention to Peabody’s destructive mining and labor practices. A dozen protesters were arrested at the rally for attempting to deliver a letter to Greg Boyce on behalf of Dineh community members who had traveled all the way from Arizona to voice their concerns about Peabody’s role in the desecration of their homeland. And while activists were fliering at Chase Park Plaza Tuesday morning, 500 members of the United Mine Workers of America were rallying outside Peabody headquarters to demand that Peabody fulfill their obligation to provide pension and health care benefits to retired mine workers; ten mine workers were arrested Tuesday in an act of civil disobedience. You can support continued direct action against extraction by making a generous donation to the RAMPS legal fund.