This article originally provided by The News Standard

June 1, 2005

Mountaintop Removal Protests Continue

Jun 1 - For the second time in as many weeks, activists and concerned citizens rallied yesterday outside a West Virginia coal processing facility to protest the actions of a company that conducts a highly profitable form of strip mining increasingly recognized as being irrevocably damaging to the environment.

The protesters demanded that the company, Massey Energy, cease operations at a facility near an elementary school in Sundial, WV and either pay to clean the school grounds or fund the construction of a new one.

Police estimated the crowd at around 150 people, sixteen of whom they arrested for trespassing. Two people were arrested at a similar protest last Tuesday.

The plant, called Goals Coal, processes, stores and handles coal and coal sludge. Activists term it a "toxic waste storage facility" and say they are committed to continuing the protests until Massey and the state act to clean the area and put an end to mountaintop removal mining operations near the town. They are also seeking to halt plans for the construction of a second storage silo on the same site

As many coal extraction companies in the Appalachian and Ohio valleys do, Massey operates a nearby 1,849-acre mountaintop removal strip mine. The mining technique is coming under increasing scrutiny as environmentalists and scientists question the environmental impact of removing large tracts of mountain and forest to extract the minerals inside. The companies literally raze the mountaintops and push the rubble into the nearby valleys, often burying streams in the process. It is estimated that 500 square miles of forested mountains have been denuded permanently in the Ohio Valley area alone.

Headquartered in Richmond, VA, Massey Energy is the nation's fourth largest coal producing company, according to a corporate press release.
--Brendan Coyne