West Virginia: Direct Action star hosts Summer campaign to oppose Mt. Top Removal
The arrival of such a famous environmental activist went unnoticed by
most media and townspeople. That changed Feb. 3, when Roselle and 12
others chained themselves to a Massey Energy Corp. bulldozer at a mine
site on Coal River Mountain in Raleigh County. He was detained and
cited, but not arrested, in his first direct action in West Virginia.
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Just a few months ago, three little coal company houses stood along the Coal River, gutted and near the end of their lives. Now, those three little homes are considered the Appalachian base for Climate Ground Zero and Coal River Wind. Their new tenant, 54-year-old national environmentalist Mike Roselle, is setting up shop to get ready for a long summer of disobedience in the coalfields. Earth First!, Roselle described it as “a painfully small group.” One of the group’s first actions featured him and his roommate headed from
California to Oregon in 1982, where logging had started in a
wilderness area. He said Earth First!’s first meeting had about 40
people in attendance and then 20 at the second.
At their first action, about eight people came and four were arrested. In 12 separate actions from April to July of that year, about 85 people were arrested. At that time, he said, none of the more traditional conservation groups would go in with Earth First! members on the 14-mile hike up a couple thousand feet of vertical elevation to the protest site. For some
Earth First! activists, it was their first time in the state.
It was the first time direct action and civil disobedience had been used in
an organized long-term campaign, Roselle said. “So that campaign resulted in probably a couple 100,000 acres of old-growth (forest) being protected, and from then Earth First! grew into a national organization,” he said. In larger campaigns, he has had up to 10,000 activists in attendance, with celebrities such as Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley there to help, Roselle said. Roselle was one of 13 activists detained and cited for trespassing after they chained themselves to a bulldozer Feb. 3 at a Massey Energy Corp. mine site. Protests and citations came in two waves, at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., with five activists involved in the first round and eight in the second.
A videographer also was arrested during the first protest. About 50 people from West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee gathered at the Coal River Mountain Watch headquarters by noon that day, according to Lorelei Scarbro, a Coal River Mountain Watch community organizer on the Coal River Project. Charles Suggs, with environmental groups Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice Summer, said, “We won’t stop until they do. There is a wind farm going on that mountain or some other healthy, safe, clean form of economic activity.” The first five activists cited were members of Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice Summer, including Roselle. He said he previously has been involved with Greenpeace and Earth First! and
moved to West Virginia in July to begin work on the mountaintop
removal issue. He’s been coming to West Virginia for five years but
said he’s here for the duration of this battle. He and others made the
long hike to get around a guard at the front gate. “Trespassing is
certainly a serious offense, but destroying a mountain is more
serious,” Roselle said.
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