Darryl Hannah: Why I was Arrested in Coal River, West Virginia

Letters sent to say thank you, sourced from link above:

"West Virginia. It is hell.

Every morning a 6 am my cat starts coughing. My eyes burn, my nose burns (sometimes bleeds), I get ill, and my health continues to fall apart. I got two forms of cancer, I can't drink the water.... My kid is lead poisoned, my wife is- and in a mile radius 10 people have had heart attacks or died from whatever is here. The dust is full of arsenic.... EPA won't come near this place. It is owned by the coal industry. Thousands, who live here and are dying from 100 miles of rivers under coal sludge, Do the earth a favor and check on this and if you feel like improving our life send us a ticket out of here. I am sending you a picture of my son. He is being poisoned here. It breaks my heart. We cannot even get workman's comp and have huge families. We are the poor of southern West Virginia."

Another one:
"Dear Daryl,

Thank you so much for coming to West Virginia and trying to save our mountains from Mountain top removal. I am a 9th generation Appalachian and it pains us to see what is happening. If it was not for the Internet I wouldn't have known about your efforts. Massey has quite a bit of influence of the local media in the coalfields. I am sorry you were arrested but I thank you for standing up for what is right. We need to work on sustainable communities here in the mountains so that coal miners will have opportunities for jobs not so dangerous. My brother works, when he can't find anything else, at the mines driving the large dump trucks that haul the coal out of the pits. It's dangerous work even if you are not underground. You just wouldn't believe the equipment they give them to work with. This one site he was in this massive huge dump truck that the floorboard was rusted out with open holes. Rocks would fly back into the cab from the tires. And when it rains, it's a mudslide. One of his co -workers was killed when the dump truck went over an embankment last year. Reporting gets you fired. And yet these workers will defend the job because there is nothing else. So thank you for standing up with us. We do appreciate it."

**Yawn**

What a wonderful article. Thank you for posting SeaJade.

"Let me make one thing clear... there is no such thing as clean coal!!!

I wish President Obama would stop using the term and take CEQ chief Nancy Sutley and EPA head Lisa Jackson to visit these unfortunate mining sites under their jurisdiction."

"Then there's the sickness...

According to WVU's institute for health policy research, coal county residents are more likely to suffer from chronic heart, lung and kidney diseases, cancers and generally suffer from excess numbers of premature death. There's a high cancer risk for up to 1 out of every 50 Americans living near the more than 100 billion gallons of toxic sludge in the clay-lined and unlined (the majority unlined) coal ash landfills and slurry ponds, such as the TVA Kingston ash sludge landfill that collapsed into the Emory River in December.

Tennessee Valley Authority officials consistently have said the ash spilled in December from the utility's Kingston Fossil Plant wet landfill in Harriman, Tenn., and in January from its Widows Creek pond in Stevenson, Ala., is non-hazardous... but after the spill, regulatory and independent testing have found high levels of toxicity in the spilled waste and raw water where the two spills occurred. Thirty-one of the landfills and slurry ponds in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama are on or near major waterways!

The slurry pond above the Marsh fork elementary school where we held our protest holds 2.8 billion gallons (it's one of the smallest ponds -- one nearby in brushing fork holds 9 billion gallons) of sludge in unlined pits containing arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

Tragically but predictably in coal river valley, the children are often sick with headaches and asthma, and among the 200 students and teachers at Marsh Fork elementary school cancer rates are higher than average.

Three teachers have died from cancer and one is struggling with the disease now.

In 2005 one student died from ovarian cancer at age seventeen and another is still battling ovarian cancer."
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So sad. TVA also has nuke plants. All these polluting industries need to pay for our healthcare if they continue to kill us. Send the health care bill to the electric companies and the military industrial complex.

I'm impressed.I thought that she was just a movie star, and not an activist.

I've lost respect for the Supreme Court.

This is where I wish we had some environentalists with tanks. They should try to find a lone nut in WV with access to a few, I'm sure he or she exists out there. Just get the tanks and cut off the heads of the coal operations.

I ache for the residents. We are about to have wind farms and they don't have as bad as health risks, but there ARE documented health issues with the giant wind turbines as well as the loss of property value.

Politicians blowing smoke up our proverbials butts.

These people need Erin Brokovich.

In the northeast, they're carving thru mountains to put windmills atop. I thought these were the same people who had a problem with ANWR and destroying the pristine landscape of the frozen tundra?

Guess money talks. Windmills on top of mountains - yeah, now that's beautiful.

sounds like some ole' bull shit.

because its the cheapest way to get "face time".

There should be a law that makes a portion of all toxic waste to be dumped under the Capitol Building.

here's a little lesson:

the coal companies are run by people, who individually and consciously would never want to harm a person. However in the pursuit of profits,"lowering cost", and ultimately the bottom line they will make decisions that end up destroying the environment. This is true in all business, its why fast food is the most cost effective for poor people, our milk is full of cow puss, our meat supply is f-ing full of steroids, its why our farms subsidize corn for corn syrup and we eat genetically modified foods, its why factories pollute our air, why childhood asthma is common, why american children are facing massive obesity, its why entire industries fight technological progress with planned obsolescence (have you heard of the "3rd generation hybrid), our socialized healthcare doesn't exist, and university is only an option for middle class and rich peoples children. My point is that money has and will reduce the standard of living in this country until we literally change our society, not through the benevolence of our government but through our own unified action. You just tell this nation, land is being reduced to garbage, but our compliance is really the fault. This case in WV is nothing new and will happen again because industry wants to do it cheap, and make lots of money at whatever cost even if the board members end up poisoning the air they breathe themselves.
To keep it short the problem is corruption of money (which is fiat, man i love saying that) and unless societies are prepared to fight the ruling class and their own governments forever we better find a new way to run a society or based my best guesses we're going to be a f*cked society with health problems that will make our obesity issue look like a cold, likely cancer, but infertility as well (among males). I didn't mean to rant but I hope we understand all these "issues" are related and fighting them one at a time is not doing us any good.
So what to do about it, well we could start by losing the "faith" we have in our system. One big day of "sleeping in" would actually crush all production, hell it might be a day off for the environment as well.

Excellent comment RaceBannon. I might also add that the people who began the industrial revolution in the early 20Th century also didn't mean to harm anyone. In fact they thought they were helping by creating jobs while getting wealthy. But this was the beginning of factories belching pollutants into the air and waist being released into our water etc. But because of scientific advancements today's coal companies know what they are doing to the environment. These people are despicable.

These are the morals and values your "elected" officials carry. Thank god we can save writing a paycheck to a few more workers and I can save an extra 20 dollars a week on my electric. Maybe the toxic sludge and MTR sites will be turned into a picnic where Obama a his officials could meet with whoever would be interested in furthering their cause for a cool 250,000. CHANGE!!! WHAT A JOKE! If you voted for Change, I hate to say it, you were duped.

Any thoughts to real practical solutions to this problem? Not just everyone sleep in? Sounds like an interesting social experiment but may not work for MTR.

There is a lot of "change" going on. Obama is snowed with making changes. He can't become educated and take action on everything at once. Instead of standing by and criticizing we could let him know by citizen activism that this problem should be be given high priority.

I'm not big on celebrity activists, but this MTR problem will only be solved by outside forces. The rest of the country has to see what's happening in WV. I saw it with my own eyes... I went on a spring break service trip to WV and saw the horror of MTR. You should go see it too! Go to ilovemountains.com and you'll find out where to go.

By the way, this is not a Republican or Democrat issue -- BOTH parties are guilty of letting this go on. That includes the president. The way to stop MTR is to put pressure on the government to stop it. Right now, very few people really know about MTR. I'm positive that if everyone knew, then it would be stopped. The folks in WV don't want their mountains blown up, but they feel powerless to stop it. The politicians and businessmen have them all hoodwinked. Tell everyone!! Write your congressmen! Send a Twitter to Obama! That's how we stop it.

I agree modeliste. As usual, informing people is the key.