UPDATED: Daryl Hannah, Climatologist James Hansen and 94-Year-Old Former Congressman Arrested at Coal River Protest

By Jeff Biggers and Stephanie Pistello, AlterNet. Posted June 23, 2009.

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"When I get to the other side, I shall tell God Almighty about West Virginia!" -- Mother Jones

Here is today's scene for the historic nonviolent direct action and march in Coal River Valley, in West Virginia: A 2.8 billion gallon toxic coal sludge impoundment behind the earthen Shumate Dam hovers just a couple of football fields above the Marsh Fork Elementary School, while massive mountaintop removal blasts boom daily within a few feet, and where hundreds of concerned parents, families and citizens from around the country have gathered to call to an end to mountaintop removal--for the sake of the children, the coalfield communities, and the Appalachian mountains.

Over 500 mountains, 1.5 million acres of hardwood forests, and 1,200 miles of streams, along with historic mountain communities, have been destroyed by mountaintop removal.

In a study the last fall by the Ashby-Tucker environmental firm, air quality experts found that the coal dust blanketing the Marsh Fork Elementary School exceeded accepted limits. According to the study, Dr. D. Scott Simonton reported: "My concern about the school is that dust levels not only appear to exceed human health reference levels, but that the dust is largely made up of coal. Coal dust contains silica, trace metals, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), many of which are known human carcinogens. PAH's have been found in dust samples taken at the school. Inhalation of coal dust is known to cause adverse health effects in humans, however, studies of coal dust toxicity are understandably mostly of adult populations. Children are particularly at risk from dust exposure in general, so it is reasonable to assume that coal dust creates an even greater risk for children than it does adults. The sampling to date certainly indicates that dust levels and composition at the school reach a level of concern. Particulate matter at levels found at the school has been shown to cause adverse effects in children."

According to the evacuation plans, if the Shumate Dam and coal sludge impoundment failed--as happened in eastern Kentucky in 2000 and at the TVA coal ash pond--the school children and communities below would have THREE MINUTES to flee.

Along with with NASA climatologist James Hansen, long-time environmental activist and actress Daryl Hannah, and many other national environmental and political figures, the rally and march from Marsh Fork Elementary School to a Goals Coal Prep Plant and Massey Energy mountaintop removal site will be joined by two legendary West Virginia titans: 88-year-old activist Winnie Fox, and 94-year-old former US Representative Ken Hechler.

Born in the eastern Kentucky coalfields, Winnie Fox's first protest took place in 1930, when she insisted on drinking from a segregated water foundation in Huntington, West Virginia, where her family moved when she was a child. A former board director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (ohvec.org)--one of the main organizations in the battle against mountaintop removal--Fox has been involved in stopping reckless pollution in the rivers and watersheds for decades, dating back to her earliest movement against Ashland Oil's pulp mill dumping of toxic material in the waterways.

Fox will be in a wheelchair today, but that will not stop her from risking arrest at the coal prep plant and Massey Energy site.

In a 2007 interview with Shannon Bell, Fox declared that her battle against mountaintop removal would be a lifelong commitment: "I would never give up, I will never stop. Because to me, that would be betraying everything that I am and everything I've ever been and everything I ever hoped to be. And I've seen too much suffering by these women [who are involved]. Too many sad stories."

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