Massey protest first-hand
by Nathan Rutz
On June 23, the small unincorporated hamlet of Sundial, West Virginia saw one of the largest anti-mountaintop removal protests to date. Several hundred peaceful protesters gathered at Marsh Fork Elementary - that infamous school within hundreds of yard of a coal processing plant, a 2.8 billion gallon coal slurry pond, and a several thousand acre mountaintop removal site. Protesters came from all over the country - as evidenced by license plates from as far as New Mexico and Vermont.
From a homemade stage, protesters gave speeches on the beauty of the mountains and hope for the future. Following the speeches, we marched two by two by hundreds toward the Massey Energy owned coal processing plant just down the road, led by James Hansen, a NASA climatologist and “Uncle Scam,” a red white and blue dressed fellow on stilts.
All the while, we were under observation by dozens of police officers and coal industry employees.
When we reached the coal processing plant, coal employees blocked the entrance to the plant screaming and holding signs with slogans like “WV Coal Miners Say Go Home Tree-Huggers.” Two or three dozen protesters sat on the road, which at that point was entirely swarmed with police cars and protesters, in front of the processing plant. They were quickly arrested and were hauled off, smiling and waving to the protesters. Meanwhile, the coal employees continued to yell and rudely gesture at us, trying to get more of us to get arrested. After everyone who wanted to get arrested had been arrested, the protesters dispersed.
On our way back to the car, coal employees tried to intimidate us. Amy Hedges, Aaron Brewer, and myself, the three protesters from Ohio Citizen Action, were nearly run over by angry coal employees revving their motorcycles to absurd decibel levels and flipping us off as they roared by. We decided to blow kisses at them.
