Protest at Pepcoal Shareholders' Meeting!

D.C. Rising Tide joined with DC Solar United Neighborhoods (SUN) today to demand that Pepco(al) bring them distributed renewable energy, not electricity from coal, other fossil fuels, or nuclear energy. The groups protested Pepcoal during the corporation's annual shareholders meeting at its headquarters in downtown D.C.

The D.C. residents chalked the sidewalk with coal and handed coal to shareholders to tell Pepcoal that we don't want their dirty coal. Others chanted out "Now is the hour for solar power" and "No more Pepcoal!"

Pepco continues to give DC residents electricity mainly from coal, including coal from mountaintop removal. The corporation has impeded efforts to promote solar energy in DC, and has even rejected a shareholder resolution to help make them move towards renewable energy.

"The currents of climate justice are coming to Pepco(al). It's time for them to dump the fossil fuels and nuclear and amp up the renewable energy. If they don't, we need to move immediately to create a people's utility instead," said DC Rising Tide member Lacy MacAuley.

The protest comes as the shareholders of Pepco Holdings Inc meet for their annual general meeting but fail to discuss a shareholder resolution filed to make the company support distributed solar energy in the District. DC SUN member John Capozzi, also a Pepco shareholder, filed a shareholder resolution in 2010 to force the company to work to facilitate residential solar projects in the District. But Pepco(al) and the Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed the shareholder resolution based on the erroneous claim that it only addressed the company's regular business operations.

"We want access to solar and we don't want Pepco to keep dragging its feet about it," said Robert Robinson of the DC Solar United Neighborhoods (DC SUN).

DC Rising Tide members also called for the corporation to pay reparations for their past and ongoing harm to communities and the environment. The company, for example, has declined to clean up and pay up for its PCB pollution of the Anacostia River from its Benning Road facility.

"It's time for Pepco(al) to change or be fired," said MacAuley. A number of concerned residents indicated that they would prefer a more accountable municipal utility. Montgomery County has already been discussing creating a public utility company that would be more accountable than Pepco(al), and the idea is gaining in popularity in DC as well.

Action at the Department of Interior!

April 18, 2011

BREAKING: Activists Staging Sit-in at Dept. of Interior Demanding Phase Out of Fossil Fuels

Residents from Gulf Coast, Appalachia and interior West join students and climate justice activists in calling for more action on extractive industry.
For Immediate Release

Contact: Scott Parkin; on site mobile- 415-235-0596;
Henia Belalia; on site mobile- 510-529-8927
Email— extraction@risingtidenorthamerica.org

Photos: available upon request.

Washington D.C.—Hundreds of climate activists marched to the Department of the Interior’s headquarters today, with twenty people committing civil disobedience inside, calling for the abolition of offshore oil drilling, coal mining and tar sands extraction. Reclaim Power led hundreds from Lafayette Park to the agency’s headquarters in Washington D.C. the same day after Powershift, a mass youth climate conference, ended and 2 days before the one year anniversary of the BP Gulf Oil Disaster.

The Dept. of Interior has oversight over two agencies, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) and the Office of Surface Mining (OSM), which are responsible for the BP Oil Spill, mountaintop removal coal mining and tar sands oil drilling in southern Utah. Furthermore, the Dept. of Interior just opened up over 7,000 acres of land to industry for coal extraction in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

“Our demonstration today is to show that Wyoming might be small in population but mighty in heart,” said Kevin Uransky, a resident from Wyoming’s coalfields and member of High Country Rising Tide participating in the sit-in. “We don’t want to just stand by and allow big corporations to destroy our homes, our way of life, and some of last open, beautiful, and undeveloped terrain left in the United States. We want to show that Wyoming has a voice not to be drowned out by those of more represented states, we have a voice, we have an opinion, and we want to be heard.”

Reclaim Power is being led by residents of residents of the Gulf Coast, Appalachia and the interior West – regions directly impacted by heinous oil, gas and coal extractive industries. Participants are calling for the Obama Administration and the federal agency to phase out harmful mining and drilling practices and facilitate transitions to sustainable local energy systems.

“The Dept. of Interior has been allowing the killing of my community and Appalachia’s mountains by the coal industry for decades” said Junior Walk from Boone County, West Virginia. “King Coal has poisoned Appalachia with toxic water, toxic air and toxic waste. It’s time for real action, not merely political posturing. I commend these fiery activists taking risks and making change for our communities and the climate.”

“For all practical purposes, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast function as a third world resource colony within the US. For a hundred years, our people and ecosystems have been sacrificed to provide cheap energy and big profits,” said Devin Martin, a native Cajun from southern Louisiana. “We pay for the hidden costs of oil and gas with our health and our lives through air pollution, oil spills, and a completely corrupted state government. We already lose a football field of coastal marsh every 38 minutes, and now rising sea levels from climate change will put my home, including New Orleans, under water permanently.”

Reclaim Power also seeks to highlight the ruthless manner in which extractive industries are allowed to treat workers and the communities they operate in. “Obama’s administration allows oil and coal to make millions from the natural resources in our communities and leave behind nothing but misery,” said Ben Kessler of Rising Tide North Texas, a participant in the sit-in. “The 11 workers who died on BP’s oil rig and the 29 who perished in Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch coal mine were killed by the same thing; corporate greed. These deaths are not accidents. They are the direct result of these companies cutting corners in pursuit of profit. Obama and his Dept. of Interior are complicit in this.”

“It’s called “public land,” not “industry land” and in Utah public land is most valuable exactly the way it is,” said Ashley Anderson, co-founder of climate group Peaceful Uprising and a student at the University of Utah. “The Dept. of Interior will not be permitted to sacrifice public land to an outdated deadly industry. Residents in Utah intend to keep the carbon in its public lands in the ground. We warn the Dept. of Interior: dirty energy is the public’s enemy, and a friend of our enemy is our enemy.”

Obama’s Dept. of Interior allows the fossil fuel industry to run amok on eco-systems, communities, workers and local economies. Last year’s, Deepwater Horizon disaster killed 11 workers and spilled over 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The results have devastated local economies, fisheries and wetlands. Mountaintop removal is a radical form of coal mining in which up to 800 feet, sometimes more, of densely forested mountaintops are literally blown up to reach thin coal seams. Already, 500 mountains and 2,000 miles of streams have been lost due to this devastating mining practice. It has been recently discovered that oil companies in southern Utah greatly exaggerated the acres of land to be developed for tar sands extraction from 60 to over 30,000. The 758 million tons of coal to be extracted from the four competitive leases in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin will be the equivalent of 300 new coal-fired power plants.

Today’s march and sit-in are a preview to Rising Tide North America’s “Day of Action against Extraction” happening in two days on April 20th, the anniversary of the BP Oil Spill. The day of action will feature protests by Gulf Coast residents fighting offshore drilling, Appalachians resisting mountaintop removal coal mining, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York residents opposing natural gas hydrofracking, Canadians fighting tar sands mining in Alberta, as well as other community groups engaged in fights against extractive industries. Protests are also planned for the UK, New Zealand, and Australia.

Reclaim Power’s and the April 20th’s Day of Action against Extraction demands include:

• An immediate phase out of fossil fuel extraction and a just transition to truly sustainable forms of energy
• Community control over natural resources
• Recognizing the sovereignty of indigenous nations and their right to control resources on their lands.
• Reparations from both state and corporate entities that have profited from extraction in order to fund ecological restoration, full health coverage, and sustainable livelihoods in impacted communities.

For more information please visit www.extractionaction.net

####

Rising Tide North America is an all volunteer climate justice network with over 50 chapters and local contacts that works to confront the root causes of climate change.

UPDATE: Two activists arrested at Massey Energy Stock Holder meeting

Activists disrupted the annual general meeting of criminal corporation Massey Energy this morning in Richmond, VA. Two of the group were arrested as they demanded an end to Massey’s reckless disregard for human life, community health, and the environment.

As shareholders entered their meeting in the main ballroom of the sheik Jefferson Hotel, activists occupied the adjacent rotunda, chanting loudly and draping a massive banner over the ornate mezzanine railings. The 10’ x 10’ hand-painted banner read, “Massey – Stop Putting Profits Over People!”

“Coal mining is dangerous. It’s dangerous for workers, dangerous for surrounding communities, and dangerous for the future of our planet. It’s time we move off of our dependency on coal and transition to a just, safe, clean energy future.” said Kate Rooth of DC Rising Tide, one of those who disrupted the meeting. “Massey Energy is notorious not only for putting their bottom dollar over people’s safety, but for driving people out their communities and poisoning their drinking water.”

Protesters loudly read an open letter to Massey (below) demanding they cease mountaintop removal coal mining, a practice that is destroying central Appalachian communities. A similar open letter was tendered by two activists who yesterday were assigned an outrageous $100,000 bail after non-violently blocking the driveway to Massey’s regional HQ in Boone County, WV.

As activists disrupted events inside, several hundred unionists and environmentalists rallied in the rain outside – albeit separately – to demand accountability for Massey’s despicable record of dangerous mine conditions, and its devastating social and ecological impact. Rally-goers pointed to the recent explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, WV that killed 29 miners, and its mountaintop removal operations throughout Appalachia in their indictment of Massey’s corporate greed.

The activists arrested today in Richmond, Kate Finneran and Oscar Ramirez, remain in custody as Massey Energy continues jeopardizing workers’ lives and blasting apart mountaintops and communities throughout Appalachia.

Slide Show:

New Press Release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 05/18/2010

Contact: Lacy MacAuley, (202) 445-4692, lacymacauley@gmail.com

James Ploeser, (202) 253-9274, james.ploeser@gmail.com

Update: Two mountain justice supporters arrested at site of Massey Energy stockholder meeting with shouts, banner

“Massey: Stop Putting Profits Over People” said banner

Richmond, VA – Two activists were arrested at the location of the Massey Energy stockholders meeting after unfurling a banner from the mezzanine above the elegant grand foyer of the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia. The banner reads, “Massey: Stop Putting Profits Over People.” The arrests occurred toward the beginning of the meeting. The activists were reading an open letter (below) to Massey Energy demanding that the company cease mountaintop removal coal mining, a practice that is destroying central Appalachia. Several hundred mine workers and environmentalists are rallying outside the building on the street to demand that Massey Energy value mine safety.

[VIEW PHOTOS of arrests, banner on Flickr*]

The two individuals, Kate Finneran, 22, and Oscar Ramirez, 25, both members of the environmental group Rising Tide DC, were brought to Richmond City Jail at 501 North Ninth Street. According to Ramirez and Finneran, who were able to make phone calls from the jail, both were to be released this afternoon on their own reconnaissance and charged with a misdemeanor trespass charge.

"Coal mining is dangerous. It’s dangerous for our workers, dangerous for surrounding communities, and dangerous for the future of our planet. It’s time we move off of our dependency on coal and transition to a just, safe, clean energy future.” said Kate Rooth of Rising Tide DC. “Massey Energy is notorious not only for putting their bottom dollar over people's safety, but for driving people out their communities and poisoning their drinking water."

Massey, a company with a terrible track record of safety violations was also responsible for the April mine disaster at Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, West Virginia which resulted in the death of 29 workers. In 2008, Massey made a $20 million settlement with the EPA for 4,500 Clean Water Act violations filed between 2000 and 2006. Now, in 2010, they are back in court for polluting America’s waterways again, this time for 971 Clean Water Act violations in 2008 and 2009.

The activists occupied the mezzanine level in the main foyer of the Jefferson Hotel and the banner they unfurled was a 10’ x 10’ hand-painted banner.

Over 500 mountains in the US have already been destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining.

More photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcrt/sets/72157623962766237/

"Massey: Stop Putting Profits Over People!"

Mountain justice supporters disrupt Massey Energy stockholder meeting in the lobby of the hotel with with chants, signs, banner

“Massey Stop Putting Profits Over People” says banner



Richmond, VA – Several activists have occupied the location of theMassey Energy stockholders meeting and have unfurled a banner from the balcony above the elegant grand foyer of the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia. The banner reads, “Massey Stop Putting Profits Over People.” The activists are loudly reading an open letter (below) to Massey Energy demanding that the company cease mountaintop removal coal mining, a practice that is destroying central Appalachia. Several hundred mine workers and environmentalists are rallying outside the building on the street to demand that Massey Energy value mine safety.

"Coal mining is dangerous. It’s dangerous for our workers, dangerous for surrounding communities, and dangerous for the future of our planet. It’s time we move off of our dependency on coal and transition to a just, safe, clean energy future.” said Kate Rooth of Rising Tide, one of the activists who disrupted the meeting. “Massey Energy is notorious not only for putting their bottom dollar over people's safety, but for driving people out their communities and poisoning their drinking water."

Massey, a company with a terrible track record of safety violations was also responsible for the April mine disaster at Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, West Virginia which resulted in the death of 29 workers. In 2008, Massey made a $20 million settlement with the EPA for 4,500 Clean Water Act violations filed between 2000 and 2006. Now, in 2010, they are back in court for polluting America’s waterways again, this time for 971 Clean Water Act violations in 2008 and 2009.

The activists are occupying the mezzanine level in the main foyer of the Jefferson Hotel and the banner they have unfurled is a 10’ x 10’ hand-painted banner.

Over 500 mountains in the US have already been destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining.

For more information on mountaintop removal coal mining and Massey

Energy, please see http://dcrisingtide.blogspot.com/.

# # #

OPEN LETTER

Dear Massey Energy,

We interrupt this meeting of Massey Energy’s Shareholders in order to spotlight and oppose Massey’s terrible safety, environmental and human rights violations. It is our responsibility to stand in firm opposition to Massey’s corporate behavior. We are willing to face the legal consequences of our non-violent action, for we know we are not alone; millions in Appalachia and across the nation are coming to see Massey for what it is. Whether it is the mountains of Appalachia, the lives of underground miners deep inside them, or the wellbeing of communities living below, Massey continually puts profits over people. It is time for the people of Appalachia and America to reject Massey and work together to create something better in its place.

“Violations are, unfortunately, a normal part of the mining process,” Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey, has stated. In 2008, Massey made a $20 million settlement with the EPA for 4,500 Clean Water Act violations filed between the year 2000 and 2006. Now, in 2010, they are back in court for polluting America’s waterways again; this time for 971 Clean Water Act violations in 2008 and 2009. A 2006 fire at Massey’s Aracoma mine killed two workers. Massey settled wrongful death lawsuits for an undisclosed sum and paid civil and criminal penalties of $4.2 million.

It is clear that neither the EPA, criminal, nor civil fines, can sufficiently motivate Massey, or Blankenship, to adopt a culture of responsibility in their business practices.

When it comes to mountaintop removal and coal sludge , there is no responsible course but to ban them entirely. Mountaintop removal is the practice of demolishing Appalachian peaks, in order to scrape out their coal seams. It fills neighboring valleys and streams with the resultant rubble, and damages the health of nearby communities. Coal sludge is the liquid byproduct of washing coal in a carcinogenic chemical bath to remove impurities, such as heavy metals including arsenic, mercury, lead, and others. We call for the abolition of both.

These two practices meet at Massey’s Brushy Fork sludge impoundment on Coal River Mountain.

The Brushy Fork Coal Sludge Impoundment is the tallest earthen dam in the Western Hemisphere, permitted to hold 9 billion gallons of sludge. Massey’s “sunny day” casualty estimation is that if the dam were to break, the flood would kill 998 Coal River Valley residents.

Coal sludge impoundments have failed in the past. A Massey-operated sludge impoundment in Martin County, KY broke in 2000, spilling 306 million gallons of toxic sludge into the tributaries of the Tug Fork, Big Sandy, and Ohio Rivers, killing wildlife, and contaminating 27,000 people’s drinking water. Brushy Fork sits above a honeycomb of abandoned underground room and pillar mines in which 31 pillars are of insufficient strength to reliably support the mine roof, let alone the mass of 9 billion gallons of sludge. Brushy Fork could also break through bottom failure, causing sludge to gush from abandoned mine entrances into the surrounding, populated valleys.

The peril of Brushy Fork is compounded by Massey’s mountaintop removal operations on the Bee Tree Permit , which surrounds the impoundment. Each day, Massey blasts within hundreds of yards of the impoundment. Every mine blast sends high and low frequency vibrations into the mountain. High frequency vibrations are the visible blast, launching fly rock and dust, and dissipate over a short distance. Low frequency vibrations, however, cause structural damages, often foundation cracks, miles from the blast site. Brushy Fork’s earthen dam structure is within hundreds of yards of blasting operations. Thousands of lives are at risk.

Massey must be stopped—that is why we are putting ourselves on the line today.

Shareholders – you have the power to intervene. Use your institutional power to demand Massey cease its mountaintop removal operations and production of coal slurry. Responsibly decommission the Brushy Fork Impoundment. Also, we ask that you join with the coalition of nine public institutional investors that are asking Massey to withhold support from Don Blankenship and Board of Directors Baxter F. Philips, Richard M. Gabrys, and Dan R. Moore “because they have failed to carry out their duties on the Safety, Environmental, and Public Policy Committee.”

Americans – coal from the mountains of Appalachia is burned all over the United States . It heats our homes, powers our factories, and illuminates our schools and offices. It is sometimes difficult connect one’s energy consumption to a struggle hundreds of miles away, but we urge you to take responsibility for that power and stand in solidarity with the people of Appalachia. We know that not everyone is able to put themselves at risk, but we firmly believe that all Americans can–and must– stand up and say: Massey Energy, Stop Putting Profits Before People!

Signed,People of the Earth and Appalachia
# # #

For more information on mountaintop removal coal mining and Massey Energy, please see http://dcrisingtide.blogspot.com/.

More pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcrt/sets/72157623962766237/

SDS and DC Rising Tide join forces to FUNK the WARMING!

Jan 29: Funk the Warming - Down With the Fossil Hawks

Mon, 01/11/2010 - 22:15 — DCSDS

bringing the ruckus against climate chaos and corporate resource wars from stolen Native American land to Iraq and Afghanistan

8.5x11" b&w flyer
11x17" poster
quarter sheets

>> Who?
. You, your fly crew, and your dancing shoes
. mad rowdy young people and our allies
. DC Students for a Democratic Society & DC Rising Tide
in alliance with the Peaceable Assembly Campaign

>> What?
funkadelic youth & student-powered mobile street party
bringing down the corporate lobbying machine

>> When?
Friday January 29th, noontime

>> Where?
Lafayette Park
Washington, DC

>> Why?
Last month, Fossil Hawks celebrated two great victories: the US-led failure of the Copenhagen climate summit and Obama's escalation of the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Thanks to their aggressive lobbying, the world's worst CO2 emitters, companies like Shell and Exxon, are free from new international pollution regulations and fixing to reap huge profits from Obama's expanding resource wars in the strategic oil and natural gas-rich war zones of the Middle East and Central Asia.

The importance of challenging the violence and treachery of corporate power is becoming increasingly clear to the Climate and Anti-War Movements. If we want to turn the tide of climate chaos and corporate resource imperialism, then 2010 must be a year of unprecedented cooperation between our movements in creative resistance against the Fossil Hawks.

With the US military's ranking as the world's #1 gas guzzler (oil consumer & user), buying from the top polluting transnationals, the problem runs deep. The annual CO2 output of the Iraq War is greater than 139 (60%) of the world's countries. It gets worse, but much of the toxic output from the War on Terror is hard to put a number on. We know that US bombs release heavy doses of other greenhouse gases, and pollutants like depleted uranium (DU) are in regular use. There is a long history of US military-industrial eco-devastation: trench warfare gases in WWI, nukes in WWII, agent orange in Vietnam, DU in Gulf War I, and it'll keep coming 'til we bring them down.

>> Fossil Hawks, WTF?
Fossil Hawks are the war-making corporate climate criminals and the politicians who serve them. They are the mining companies, energy companies, weapons manufacturers, military logistics companies, and mercenaries who profit from resource wars and lobby to sabotage US and UN environmental regulation. Many are at the top of the 122 companies responsible for 80% of global CO2 output. They are diversified corporations and lobbies invested in war and environmental exploitation.

* Exxon is expanding natural gas operations using Halliburton's "fracking" process, poisoning North American aquifers while selling jet fuel to US forces bombing Afghanistan until it's "stable" enough for pipelines moving Caspian natural gas.

* Shell simultaneously profits from Iraqi oilfields and from the fuel US tanks burn to protect them while clear-cutting for tar sands in Alberta and lobbying for "Clean Coal" technology in DC.

* Caterpillar sells the same monstrous gas-guzzling D-9 bulldozers to Massey Coal for mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia that US tax dollars buy for Israeli Military demolition of Palestinian homes.