Activists Disrupt Arch Coal Corporate HQ

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013
posted by admin
  • Tweet

UPDATE 4:41 pm CST: All activists have been removed after disrupting business as usual at Arch Coal for over 6 hours.  We are still waiting on final confirmation of bail and charges. What a great day!

UPDATE: 3:27 pm CST: One activist is still locked down. The corrected bail amount is $1,000.

UPDATE 2:51 pm CST: Four of the activists have been cut out by the Fire Dept.  Three others remain attached to our potted plant.  Those that have been arrested were set a $10,000 bail.

UPDATE 11:03 am CST:  Supporter that sang this great song to Arch Coal have dispersed from the building. Fire Dept is on scene to attempt to remove activists locked down upstairs.

Activists Occupy Arch Coal Corporate HQ

Seven locked to each other and a 500-pound potted tree, blocking entrance to Arch Coal's HQ office.

Seven locked to each other and a 500-pound potted tree, blocking entrance to Arch Coal’s HQ office.

CREVE COEUR, MO —  Seven affiliated with the RAMPS campaign (Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival), MORE (Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment) and Mountain Justice are locked down to a 500-pound small potted tree in Arch Coal’s third-floor headquarters while a larger group is in the lobby performing a song and dance.  Additionally, a helium balloon banner with the message “John Eaves Your Coal Company Kills”, directed at the Arch Coal CEO was released in at the Arch Coal headquarters.

Seven protesters locked down outside the corporate office of Arch Coal.

Seven protesters locked down outside the corporate office of Arch Coal.

 

“We’re here to halt Arch’s operations for as long as we can. These coal corporations do not answer to communities, they only consume them.  We’re here to resist their unchecked power,” explained Margaret Fetzer, one of the protestors.

Arch Coal, the second largest coal company in the U.S., operates strip mines in Appalachia and in other U.S. coal basins. Strip mining is an acutely destructive and toxic method of mining coal, and resource extraction disproportionately impacts marginalized communities.

“From the Battle of Blair Mountain to the current fight with the Patriot pensions, the people of central Appalachia have been fighting against the coal companies for the past 125 years. The struggle continues today as we take action to hold Arch Coal and other coal companies accountable for the damage that they do to people and communities in Appalachia and around the world. Coal mining disproportionately impacts indigenous peoples, and we stand in solidarity with disenfranchised people everywhere,”  Dustin Steele of Mingo County, W.Va. said.  Steele was one of the people locked in Arch’s office.

Mingo County is representative of the public health crisis faced by communities overburdened by strip mining.  A recent study of life expectancies placed Mingo County in the bottom 1 percent out of 3,147 counties nationwide.

Arch’s strip mines not only poison communities, but also seek to erase the legacy of resistance to the coal companies in Appalachia. Arch’s Adkins Fork Surface Mine is blasting threatening to blast away Blair Mountain—the site of the second largest uprising in U.S. history and a milestone in the long-standing struggle between Appalachians and the coal companies. 

The devastation of Arch’s strip mines plague regions beyond Appalachia.  Arch’s operation in the Powder River Basin is the “single largest coal mining complex in the world.”  Producing 15 percent of the U.S. coal supply, Arch is a major culprit of the climate crisis.

NASA scientist James Hansen describes the burning of coal as a leading cause global climate change.  The Midwest region faces serious public health impacts from climate change due to “increased heat wave intensity and frequency, degraded air quality, and reduced water quality” according to recently published data from the National Climate Assessment.

5 Responses to “Activists Disrupt Arch Coal Corporate HQ”

  1. Patty says:

    Way to go. Arch needs to wake up, the public needs to wake up!

  2. Watcher says:

    Way to go is right, better the freak show invade Arch out west and leave us alone here in W Va. Too bad ole Mikey missed out on this one, being hacked and put out to pasture by his own people. Hope she was worth it.

  3. Teri says:

    I am with you in spirit. Thank you.

  4. Randy Steck says:

    Coal does not kill.

    The particulate rule the EPA invokes (PM2.5) is now demonstrated to be falsely injurious, based on information from recent Chinese air pollution. The predicted deaths related to high concentrations have not occurred. In fact, there are NO deaths attributed to this.

    Similarly, CO2 emissions by coal are not a significant contributor to global warming. Simulations that account for negative feedback from high concentrations of moisture in the air (at high temps) mitigate the doomsday scenarios previously published.

    If you want to make a difference and save lives, lobby to lift restrictions on DDT for use to control malaria in Africa. This will save millions of lives.

  5. Crissy says:

    I must say that you guys really have no idea about the battle of blair mountain. You DO NOT represent any of those men that lost their lives or who fought to keep their union job on that mountain! You are not helping these men keep their pensions and insurance now, you are only making it harder for them! Please step back and look at your actions and what it is causing here in the Appalachians!

Leave a Reply to Watcher