In West Virginia and elsewhere throughout Appalachia, they cut down entire mountains and dump the debris into the nearby valleys, killing everything, land and communities alike. It’s called Mountaintop Removal (MTR), and it’s an apocalypse.

It isn’t happening without a fight, but Appalachians are damn poor, and no one with power listens to the complaints of poor people. Coal is an incredibly powerful industry.

Yesterday, 50 activists used direct action to shut down Hobet mine, the largest MTR site in Appalachia. Ten of them locked themselves to a rock truck, and news reports have at least one other climbing a tree, using their bodies to keep the site from operating for the day.

Twenty of them were arrested and aren’t to be released until they put up the $25,000 apiece in ransom the state demands. One arrestee, Dustin Steele of Matewan, WV, has reported that he was taken into a room and beaten by cops after his arrest, and other witnesses have it that protesters were being physically assaulted by police while being arrested.

I’m not neutral in this (surprise surprise): the state and the coal companies are quite clearly and demonstrably in cahoots to keep the mountaintops falling, despite the cancer, despite the black water, despite the obliterated ecosystems, despite the collapse of local economies and the flight of communities, despite the flooding, despite the outrage. Any reasonable person would be opposed to the nightmare that MTR causes. Please, please, consider helping out. Get involved directly, whether through the system or through direct action. Spread the word, let people know about what’s going on. And consider donating to the bail fund for the remarkably brave people putting their bodies between the land and the machinery of its destruction.

Some of my photos and posts about MTR sites and the resistance to it:
Wise County, VA
the flooding of Mingo County, WV, caused by strip mining
what’s left of Kayford Mountain, WV