Coal River Mountain: “Thus Far and No Further”

We’ve heard and seen evidence that Massey Energy is now clearing and blasting for coal extraction on Coal River Mountain. We’ve had a lot of victories in the past few months, but this is ours and our allies line in the sand. Coal River Mountain is the symbol of our clean energy future and the dirty ugly past where corporations put profit over people.

Coal Rive Mountain is the site of a proposed wind farm.  Studies have shown that its ridges have the highest and most productive wind potential. The Coal River Wind Project has done research to demonstrate that a wind farm on top of the mountain could generate approximately 1.2% of West Virginia’s total energy needs, create 300 jobs in the area, and generate a long-term tax revenue stream. Every day that blasting happens, the possibility for the wind farm diminishes.

Not only  does it have great potential, but these operations are happening only a few hundred feet away from the Brushy Fork impoundment dam, which holds over 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge above Pettus, WV. If the dam bursts, nearly a thousand people in the Coal River Valley would likely lose their lives within minutes.

Ed Abbey once remarked: “At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoroeau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

It’s now time for us to say “thus far and no further.” The fight is on. Yesterday Jeff Biggers posted this blog and today coalfield resident Bo Webb posted this one.

From inside and outside the coalfields I’m hearing people step up to defend Coal River Mountain. Oct. 30 is a National Day of Action to End MTR, let’s make it a national day of action to defend Coal River Mountain. Let’s make the next long while a national day of action to defend Coal River Mountain.

Start this week, by calling EPA Admin Lisa Jackson and say “thus far and no further.”