Combating Mountaintop Removal: New Directions in the Fight against Big Coal

Epilogue

Epilogue My formal field research period ended in late 2003 and early 2004. Since then I have made many visits to the Coal River region, though never for as long as I would have liked. I have attended several events related to MTR, coal, and energy policy issues. I have incorporated the issues into my various teaching roles, and I have included coalfield activists in my classrooms and communities at every opportunity. Strong continuities endure between the movement against mountaintop removal as it existed in 2003 and the various forms that have emerged through 2010. Coal issues in 2010 were no less contentious in the coalfield regions of Appalachia. Strong grassroots opposition persisted, as did entrenched industry and political forces supporting mining. Several important developments warrant specific mention. Efforts challenging the coal industry and regulatory agencies continued to succeed in federal district courts. Working with grassroots organizations and national environmental law organizations like Earth Justice, Joe Lovett and others have successfully challenged several specific pieces of mine regulation and enforcement, including the so-called Nationwide-21 permit procedure (authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to put fill material in U.S. waters). As with previous legal victories, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned all of these challenges. Barack Obama’s election gave activists cautious optimism that new leadership at Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) might be more friendly to their cause than had the EPA leaders under George W. Bush. The Obama EPA drew attention to the issue by ordering new reviews of pending MTR permits and by rescinding some noteworthy permits. Two years into the administration, however, the activist community was frustrated at the EPA’s 172 Epilogue piecemeal approach and President Obama’s unwillingness to reinstate language defining MTR overburden as “waste” rather than “fill”—reversing the change made early in the Bush administration to accommodate mining. The environmental nonprofit organization Appalachian Voices led legislative efforts against MTR by advancing the Clean Water Protection Act. The bill, first introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 and in each subsequent Congressional session, would reinstate language changed by the Bush administration and would outlaw most valley fills. A companion bill was first introduced in the Senate in 2009. The House bill, originally sponsored by Republican Christopher Shays of Connecticut and Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey, had bipartisan support from the beginning. The Senate bill, however, brought with it the most noteworthy Republican name to date—Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Alexander’s status as cosponsor was impressive not only because of his stature within the Republican Party, but also because he represents a coal-producing state. Appalachian Voices opened a permanent office in Washington, D.C., and continues to bring coalfield residents to lobby on behalf of the Clean Water Protection Act on a regular basis. Shortly after my formal research concluded, the specter of mountaintop removal permits on Zeb Mountain in east Tennessee brought a new group of young MTR activists into the movement. Members of the Friends of the Mountain coalition, including Coal River Mountain Watch, began collaborating with an Earth First! group from Tennessee that, along with many other key participants, gave rise in 2005 to Mountain Justice Summer (an organization seeking abolition of MTR, steep slope strip mining, and all other forms of surface mining for coal). Clearly drawing on civil rights models, the effort brought a cadre of young activists to Coal River for a series of educational and activist efforts. The goal of CRMW, as many early activists emphasized, was not confrontation, but building community solidarity and offering local residents spaces and resources with which to express their frustration with coal industry practices. The incorporation of Earth First! and the subsequent organizational models of Mountain Justice were decidedly more confrontational , with elements of anticapitalist and anarchist countercultural themes. This constituted a clear break with much of the CRMW tradition that created both enthusiastic hope for new directions in the movement and serious misgivings among many community members and longtime activists. These conflicted feelings culminated in a intramovement meeting in Charleston that included the organizers of the Mountain Justice movement and other leading MTR movement figures with reservations about the new trends. I attended the meeting, which was mediated by a Charleston min- Epilogue 173 ister respected by activists for his longtime participation in social justice issues. Foundational members of the MTR movement explained their efforts...