This news story originally provided by The Register Herald

June 29, 2005

Group to take concerns to Massey headquarters

By Amelia A. Pridemore/REGISTER-HERALD REPORTER

After two protests which led to a total of 18 arrests, Coal River Valley citizens and their supporters are taking their concerns over a Massey Energy facility straight to the company's headquarters.

Members of Coal River Mountain Watch, concerned Coal River Valley citizens, parents and grandparents of Marsh Fork Elementary students and their Mountain Justice Summer supporters will arrive at Massey Energy's main doorstep in Richmond, Va., this morning. The group's goal is that Goals Coal Company, a facility next to Marsh Fork Elementary in Sundial, will be shut down.

According to a release from Coal River Mountain Watch, the group will bring a list of demands - demands that it says Massey has never responded to - that include shutting down the facility as well as cleaning up Marsh Fork Elementary School or building a safe, new school in the Coal River Valley community and withdrawing its application for a second coal loading silo behind the school.

The group and its supporters from the Mountain Justice Summer environmental movement have conducted protests on May 24, in which two were arrested, and May 31, in which 16 were arrested, at the Massey facility's entrance. They also voiced their concerns at a May 26 West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection hearing regarding Massey's application to build a second silo at the site.

Gov. Joe Manchin met with Coal River Valley residents June 22 to hear their concerns about Massey's operations.