last night's craziness
Anyone who follows me on Twitter (kycarrie) probably knows that last night I was at a hearing for the possible suspension of the Nationwide 21 permit. NWP21 is used as a blanket permit for valley fills, and the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA think that maybe it's a better idea to make coal companies apply for separate permits whenever they want to blow up a mountain. So they're holding public hearings on the issue in Appalachia, and I drove 3 hours to Pikeville, KY to support the coalfield residents who were speaking out in support of the suspension.
My god, it was insane. There were at least 3000 miners, bused in from around the region and told to start their shifts at the hearing. It was so tense, we got called out for being treehuggers and booed and jeered at. A miner behind us tried to pick a fight with one of our folks ("Why you wanna take our jobs?!"), but she was awesome and ended up finding some common ground with him. There was like 2 hours of a pro-coal pep rally, featuring local politicians, judges, and our own douchebag Lt Governor talking about how fantastic mountaintop removal mining is. When one of our folks finally stood up to talk, she was booed and shouted down until a miner got up and told everyone to shut up and be respectful. Which only sort of worked.
The state police offered to walk us back to our cars, but by the time we left (around 11pm and the hearing still wasn't over), the crowd was almost all gone, so we didn't have any trouble. But it was seriously scary. An insane mob mentality.
And it was tame compared to what happened in West Virginia. Over there, people were getting death threats, being shoved, blocked from entering the hearing, screamed at... Just check out this video:
The cops did nothing, just said "Well you knew what you were getting into" and "you're on your own." Inside the hearing, pro-mountain speakers were shouted down, and the hearing moderators wouldn't stop the crowd because they feared it would cause safety problems. So not even the US Army will stand up to coal thugs in West Virginia. What the hell??!! And they think that the hearing was "conducted in an orderly fashion."
I don't even know anymore. I think the tide is turning against MTR, and the coal industry knows it, so they're trying to cause as much trouble as possible. If someone is hurt or killed by coal thugs, the blood will be on the industry's hands.
My god, it was insane. There were at least 3000 miners, bused in from around the region and told to start their shifts at the hearing. It was so tense, we got called out for being treehuggers and booed and jeered at. A miner behind us tried to pick a fight with one of our folks ("Why you wanna take our jobs?!"), but she was awesome and ended up finding some common ground with him. There was like 2 hours of a pro-coal pep rally, featuring local politicians, judges, and our own douchebag Lt Governor talking about how fantastic mountaintop removal mining is. When one of our folks finally stood up to talk, she was booed and shouted down until a miner got up and told everyone to shut up and be respectful. Which only sort of worked.
The state police offered to walk us back to our cars, but by the time we left (around 11pm and the hearing still wasn't over), the crowd was almost all gone, so we didn't have any trouble. But it was seriously scary. An insane mob mentality.
And it was tame compared to what happened in West Virginia. Over there, people were getting death threats, being shoved, blocked from entering the hearing, screamed at... Just check out this video:
Click to viewThe cops did nothing, just said "Well you knew what you were getting into" and "you're on your own." Inside the hearing, pro-mountain speakers were shouted down, and the hearing moderators wouldn't stop the crowd because they feared it would cause safety problems. So not even the US Army will stand up to coal thugs in West Virginia. What the hell??!! And they think that the hearing was "conducted in an orderly fashion."
I don't even know anymore. I think the tide is turning against MTR, and the coal industry knows it, so they're trying to cause as much trouble as possible. If someone is hurt or killed by coal thugs, the blood will be on the industry's hands.