Three residents of Central Appalachia and supporters with Mountain Justice chained themselves to an industrial tank of black water in front of Alpha Natural Resources’ Bristol, Va., headquarters to protest Alpha’s mountaintop removal strip mining and coal slurry operations across the region.
“I’m risking arrest today because mountaintop removal has to end now for the future viability of Appalachia,” says Emily Gillespie of Roanoke, Va., whose work with the Mountain Justice movement is inspired by Appalachian women’s history of non-violent resistance. The tank of water represents coal contamination from affected communities across the Appalachian region.
The group called for Alpha to stop seeking an expansion of the Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment in Raleigh County, W.Va. “We want Kevin Crutchfield, CEO of Alpha Natural Resources, to produce a signed document expressing that they won’t seek the expansion of the Brushy Fork Impoundment before we leave,” Junior Walk, 23, from the Brushy Fork area said.
“I live downstream from Alpha’s Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment on Coal River. If that impoundment breaks, my whole family would be killed,” Walk said, “Even if it doesn’t, we’re still being poisoned by Alpha’s mining wastes everyday. I’m here to bring the reality of that destruction to the corporate authorities who are causing it, but who don’t have to suffer its consequences.”
More than 20 peer-reviewed studies since 2010 demonstrate a connection between mountaintop removal coal mining operations and increased cases of kidney, lung, and heart diseases, as well as increased birth defects and early mortality. The ACHE act, currently in sub committee in Washington, calls for a moratorium on new mountaintop removal operations until a definitive, non-partisan study can demonstrate the reason for these community health emergency levels of health impacts.
The impoundment at Brushy Fork holds back almost 5 billion gallons of toxic sludge and is considered the largest earthen dam in the Western hemisphere. Recently leaked records show that coal slurry impoundments in Appalachia failed 59 out of 73 total structural tests performed by the Office of Surface Mining. “Alpha is only profitable because they’re allowed to gamble with our lives—and we’re the ones who pay the cost of their negligence and toxic pollution,” Walk said.
Alpha has lost numerous lawsuits relating to pollution from mining wastes in recent years, but they continue to violate safety regulations and expand their hazardous operations.
After refusing to take responsibility for the massive floods caused by the King Coal Highway and their destructive mountaintop removal mining practices, Alpha continues to push forward similar projects, such as the controversial Coalfields Expressway in Virginia.
Mercury is an element which is naturally present in our environment. It is also known as quicksilver. It is a heavy, silvery-white metal which is liquid at room temperature and evaporates easily. Mercury is usually found in nature in the form of cinnabar, used in the past as a red pigment. Cinnabar, a natural form of mercury, can be found in metals, such as lead and zinc, and in small amounts in a wide range of rocks including coal and limestone. The other source of mercury comes from human activities. About half of the global anthropogenic mercury emissions come from the burning of coal, metals production and the production of cement. [1] About 2,600 tons are emitted from anthropogenic sources. [2]
Mercury mostly resonates to us, humans, through its organic compound ‘methylmercury’ (MeHg), which is only found is aquatic habitats. Around 1914, methylmercury became commercially important as a crop fungicide and its worldwide use has lead to several food poisoning incidents. [3] However, it wasn’t until the early 1950s that methylmercury became recognized as a well-known thread, after years of the chemical company Chisso discharging it into Minamata Bay, Japan. [3] Over 17, 000 people were certified as disease victims. Symptoms can range from ataxia, muscle weakness and damage to hearing and speech, to insanity, paralysis and death.
What is new about mercury?
In January 2013, more than 140 countries have adopted the first global, legally binding treaty, known as the Minamata Convention on Mercury, to prevent the release of anthropogenic mercury. Later on, in October 2013, Minamata will be in the news again to ratify the treaty.
Why is mercury hazardous?
Mercury is tasteless and odorless, so when it does get into the environment it’s not easy to spot. And as the only metal on Earth that can be found in a liquid form at room temperature, mercury is often used in barometers, thermometers and in any household items like cosmetics, antiseptics and skin lightening creams. It can also be combined with other metals to create special alloys called amalgams, which can be silver or gold. [5]
Moreover, mercury poisoning is not a local issue. Most of the world’s estimated 600,000 tonnes of mercury deposits are found in a handful of countries, including China, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Slovenia, Spain and Ukraine. [6] Of course, the US is not excluded. [5]
The biggest anthropogenic sources of mercury are coal fired power plants, and artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM), together emitting a minimum of 1000 tonnes per year.
What about the treaty?
Unfortunately, the treaty only provides soft measures like awareness raising, advocacy, and the provision of information, so as to encourage reductions of anthropogenic mercury emissions. Although the treaty is ‘legally binding’, it encourages governments to set out strategic reduction schemes on the facility in Minamata rather than on a national basis
On top of this, the treaty does not require identification or remediation of contaminated sites, does not require polluters to pay for health damages or environmental clean-up, and does not provide protection from similar disasters occurring anywhere in the world. In fact, the treaty is not expected to reduce global levels of mercury in fish and seafood at all. [7]
A look into the future
With global warming at 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 1,199 new coal-fired plants are being proposed globally. [8] It seems our addiction to fossil fuels is not going to end.
Mercury emissions are not expected to fall until the 2020s, while the treaty itself is expected to increase anthropogenic emissions.
The rising global concern is methylmercury poisoning growing in combination with ongoing climate change and water scarcity – in particular with regard to coal fired power stations, with their high CO2 emissions and significant use of water for cooling.
Talking about clean coal (or clean coal technology)? In the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Energy report honestly said: “There is no point in pretending that coal is what it is not, nor that it is not what it is. Coal is naturally endowed with the elements and minerals of the living organisms that define its primordial origins, and that means the carbon for which it is valued. But, to some degree, it also means sulfur, and nitrogen, and incombustible impurities. It is an incontrovertible fact that the uncontrolled burning of coal will release into the environment carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), particulate matter, and ash.
It is the business of the Clean Coal Technology Program to develop the means of burning this coal with attendant minimal emissions of these undesirable pollutants; we know that there can never be none. So, if not literally “clean” coal, then certainly we mean “cleaner” coal, and it is in this sense that the Program uses the shorthand term, Clean Coal Technology”. [9]
According to Rob Dietz, regular contributor at The Daly News, “clean coal means that miners have struck it rich — that they’ve found a seam of coal that, when burned, produces only a lemony fresh, green vapor”. [10]
The hard work lies in changing the current state of our economy. We need to be confronting the root causes of our environmental problems, which are population growth and a false economic paradigm triggered by capitalism, rather than simply the symptoms alone. As Albert Bartlett, the physicist and activist, has said: “Smart growth destroys the environment. Dumb growth destroys the environment. The only difference is that smart growth does it with good taste. It’s like booking passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same.”
[2] Honda, S., Hylander, L., & Sakamoto, M. (2006). Recent advances in evaluation of health effects on mercury with special reference to methylmercury: A minireview. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 11 (4), 171-176
[3] Barrett, J. (August, 2010). An Uneven Path Forward: The History of Methylmercury Toxicity Research. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Environmental Health perspective, 118(8): A352
When I first read Andrew Nikiforuk’s book Tar Sands, I was deeply disturbed. The gluttonous use of water and natural gas, the destruction of mature boreal forests, the high rates of rare cancers, the sickening reduction in air quality, the malformations of local fish populations, the loss of farmlands, and more—a list of damages so glaring that the project stood out as exemplary of this culture’s insanity. At the time though, the Tar Sands existed there, in Alberta, not here, in the US.
Now that has changed. In January, the Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining voted in favor of U.S. Oil Sands moving forward with a Tar Sands test-site in Uintah County of eastern Utah. Other companies stand close behind, waiting to tear into hundreds of thousands of acres of land for the heavy oil that rests beneath.
If these extraction projects are realized, much of Utah wildlife will come under assault. A snapshot of some of the creatures that call the high-elevation lands of the test-site home include sage grouse, antelope, mule deer, black bear, cougar, California myotis, and faded pygmy rattlesnake. Their fate at this time looks unpromising. Tar Sands extraction leaves only “one potential fate for this land—scorched, foul, dusty, hot and dead.” [1]
Beyond the horrific material effects, the Utah Tar Sands is the crux of a transformation in the larger Tar Sands struggle, a transformation from importation to importation and domestic production of tar sands fuels. If the Keystone XL Pipeline is the Tar Sands’ frontal attack, the Utah Tar Sands is its Trojan horse—from which numerous domestic projects will spring off.
Imagine the message it would send to investors if they saw the first US Tar Sands mine opposed in full force. Imagine the momentum it would give us if through our actions this first mine was stopped. The success or failure of this project will set the stage for future Tar Sands mines in the US. Now is the time to mobilize.
Fortunately, there are many people and groups already committed to fighting the Utah Tar Sands. Several actions have taken place already, and an action camp is planned for late July. We can help their efforts by offering either our physical support in person or our material support from afar. So much is already in place that has the capacity to stop the Utah Tar Sands that it would be a shame if finances were the limiting factor.
Several DGR groups—including Deep Green Resistance Colorado Plateau, Deep Green Resistance Colorado, DGR Mojave, and Deep Green Resistance Great Basin are converging in Utah this summer to add their voices and their strength to the existing struggles. Deep Green Resistance is also working to help bring Lakota warriors to Utah, warriors who have been at the forefront of resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline. This is a crucial way in which we can connect the Tar Sands resistance movements and show indigenous solidarity.
Tar Sands extraction in the US can and will be stopped. I have already made my donation, and I hope you will too.
To the cheers and applause of the dozens of supporters below, anti-fracking activists unfurled a two-story banner with “Don’t Frack Illinois,” from the balcony of the state capitol rotunda. During impassioned testimony from activists with the Illinois Coalition for a Moratorium on Fracking (ICMF), the brightly colored banner gave visual support to the voices gathered from throughout the state who came together in Springfield for this the second lobbying and day of action called for by the coalition. “We won’t allow water, air, and living communities to be traded for short-term jobs,” If the industry pursues fracking in Illinois, we will hold these corporations and the policymakers who support them accountable.” said a member of Deep Green Resistance.
Oil and gas companies have bought mineral rights to land and are poised to start fracking in Southern and Central Illinois. Meanwhile, state lawmakers are debating on how to handle this threat. In February a regulatory, bill HB 2615, was introduced. This bill was crafted by a select group of industry, lawmakers and a few large green groups. This bill puts in place some safeguards, but largely leaves communities vulnerable. Chiefly, HB 2615 does not give local counties local control to ban the practice and it does not require that companies disclose proprietary chemicals used in the mining process prior to introducing them into the environment.
In contrast, a Moratorium bill, SB HB 3086 would put a two year moratorium on fracking in Illinois and require that the state conduct a thorough, independent assessment of the effects of hydraulic fracturing. Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment (SAFE) a grassroots group based out of Carbondale, IL and a growing number of environmental groups are pushing for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in Illinois.
“It’s ridiculous that our lawmakers see hydraulic fracturing is an opportunity for our state. Out of state corporations will be making most of the money while residents and our climate will be suffering from this polluting industry” said Angie Viands of Rising Tide Chicago.
This day of action in Springfield included citizen lobbying, a morning press conference with the banner drop, and Illinois Peoples Action storming the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association (IMA) offices. IMA is a main proponent of bringing hydraulic fracturing to the state.
Mining is one of the most viscerally destructive and horrific ways in which the dominant culture—industrial civilization—enacts its violence on the living world. As entirely and unequivocally destructive as this society is, few other industrial activities are as horrifically confronting as mining. Whole landscapes are cleared of life as communities—most often indigenous or poor—are forced from their homes. Mountains level to piles of barren rubble which leach countless poisons, scouring life from whole watersheds. Pits of unimaginable size are carved from the bones of the earth, leaving moonscapes in their wake.
Besides the immediate damage to the land at the site of operations, the destruction extends through the uses its products are put to. In this way, mining is crucial to the continued function of industrial civilization, supplying many of the raw materials that form the material fabric of industrial society. Steel, aluminum, copper, coal, tar sands bitumen, cement; the materials extracted through mining are central components of industrial civilization in an immediate and physical way. They are the building blocks of this society.
Fortunately, as is the way of things, where there is atrocity and brutalization, there is resistance. There has been a lot of militant anti-mining action happening recently; in the last few months alone there have been several inspiring incidents of people taking direct militant action against mining projects and infrastructure.
In February, several dozen masked militants raided the Hellas gold mine in Halkidiki, Greece. They firebombed machinery, vehicles, and offices at the site. The attack followed several years of legal challenges and public demonstrations—none of which succeeded in stopping the mine, which will destroy forests, poison groundwater, and release air pollutants including lead, mercury and arsenic.
When local residents tried to stop the mine through the courts the government ruled against them, claiming that the mine would create jobs. As the Deputy Minister of Energy and Environment Asimakis Papageorgiou said, “We can no longer accept this [area] being left unexploited or barely exploited.”
Statements like these on the part of those in power, while not necessarily surprising, help to make clear the reality we face; the dominant culture requires the rending of the living world into dead commodities. It can’t be persuaded to change, no matter how compassionate and compelling the appeals we make. It can only be forced to change.
More recently, the Powharnal coal mine in Scotland was attacked at the beginning of April. An anonymous communique was released via Indymedia Scotland:
At some point over the past weekend multiple items of plant machinery at an extension to the Powharnal open cast coal site in East Ayrshire were put beyond working use. High value targets including a prime mover and bulldozer were also targeted to cause maximum disruption to workings at the mine.
Scottish Coal is falling and not only do we intend to make sure that they go down – but that they stay down too.
This action presents yet another hopeful example of militant action targeting extractive projects. This was not a symbolic act of property destruction, but rather one aimed at materially disrupting and stopping destructive activity. More so, the actionist(s) specifically targeted key equipment and infrastructure at the site to maximize the impact of their actions, making good use of effective systems disruption.
A third example comes from Peru, where in mid-April several hundred protestors stormed the Minas Conga gold & copper mine, occupying the site for a short while and burning equipment. Besides the immediate damage done by the arson, the action forced the operating company, Minera Yanacocha, to evacuate personnel and equipment, further disrupting their operations.
This latest protest in April is the latest in a continuous and diverse tapestry of resistance to the Minas Conga mine. Such direct and militant protests and actions last year forced Yanacocha to put most of the mining project on hold, and the strong unyielding opposition has Newmont Mining Corporation (which owns Yanacocha) considering pulling out of the project altogether. This is yet another example of how effective militant action can be in stopping mining and other extractive projects.
Of course there are plenty of aboveground and nonviolent efforts being made to oppose mining projects happening as well, and this isn’t meant to detract from or dismiss their efforts. But the dominant culture needs access to the raw materials that feed the global economy, and in the end it will secure those resources by force, refusing to hear “no!”
Again, this isn’t to say that nonviolent efforts are by any means doomed to failure each and every time we employ them. It is to acknowledge that the entire existence and operation of industrial civilization requires continued access to “raw materials” (otherwise known as natural living communities), and that the courts, regulatory systems, and laws have all been designed to preserve that arrangement. We may win occasional victories here and there, but like a casino, they—the House, the capitalists, the miners, the extractors, etc.— will always come out ahead in the end.
When aboveground & legal efforts to stop mining and other extraction projects fail, as they so often and reliably do, those determined to protect the lands and communities that are their homes turn to other means.
Attacking and destroying the mining infrastructures themselves—the physical machines that are the immediate and direct weapons used to tear up biomes—forces a halt to extraction with an unmatched directness and immediacy. Beyond mining itself, the strategic efficacy of targeting infrastructure—as the foundational supports of any system—has been proven time and again by militaries and resistance movements around the world.
Of course, attacks targeting mines alone will likely never be enough to stop such harmful and destructive processes altogether. That can only happen by dismantling industrial civilization itself. And like anti-mining resistance, bringing down civilization will require underground action— the targeting of key nodes of critical industrial systems through coordinated sabotage.
That will require building a serious and capable resistance movement, one that is unafraid to name the situation before us—the stakes, the urgency, and the strategic reality—and to confront power. It means building a movement that can navigate around the traps and misdirection historically used to disrupt and disable movements. It means building a movement that is willing and able to defend the living Earth by any means necessary. Toward this end, members of DGR will be traveling the Northeast U.S. & Southeast Canada this summer for the Resistance Rewritten Tour, to talk about what that movement will mean and look like.
As civilization continues its incessant death march around the world— tearing apart and destroying ever more of the living world, ever more human and extra-human communities— resistance against it must of necessity become more militant. With so much at stake, those resisters in Greece, Scotland, Peru and elsewhere using militant attacks on industrial infrastructure to defend their lands and communities deserve our undying support. Those of us who value life and justice should not condemn them, but celebrate them— for theirs is precisely the type of action that will be required to stop the murder of the living world.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
