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 Larry Gibson stands near the mountaintop removal site on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia. KAYFORD, WV — “Larry Gibson’s parents never worried about finding him, when, as a boy, he wandered out into the forest. All they had to do was spot the hawk that followed him from the air. That’s how close Gibson was to the West Virginia mountains.
He pined for those mountains after his family joined the exodus from Appalachia, moving to where the jobs were, into Ohio and Pennsylvania, in the 1950s. But finally, in the 1990s, he was able to move back to a small cabin on the land owned by his family for generations.
By that time, the nearby town of Kayford was nearly gone. And the hills where he once roamed trembled under gigantic bulldozers and leviathan drag lines that were pushing back the woods, reaching down into the earth, and tearing out the coal.
Mountaintop removal mining tore something out of him, too, but he found a way to fight back. And in the process, Larry Gibson became something unexpected, a unique species of Appalachian Lorax, a small man in bib overalls who could elevate your vision with a few dozen words.
Gibson died Sunday following a heart attack at his home on Kayford Mountain in West Virginia’s Raleigh County. He was 66 years old.”
— Bill Kovarik, Earth Island Institute
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 Larry Gibson was honored and remembered today and his fighting spirit inspired hundreds. WASHINGTON, DC — “Waterkeeper Alliance joined hundreds of people today to stand in solidarity with Appalachia in front of the White House to tell President Obama to be a hero and end mountaintop removal coal mining.
The Summer of Solidarity event began with a rally in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC where speakers spoke passionately about the urgent need to shift towards clean energy and away from extreme forms of dirty energy like coal which poisons our waters, destroys our mountains, pollutes our air and harms our health.
Many speakers invoked the memory of mountain hero Larry Gibson who passed away on Sunday, Sept. 9. Activists carried Larry’s fighting spirit to the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality by delivering more than 13,000 personal photos and messages urging president Obama to end mountaintop removal coal mining.”
— Donna Linsby, Waterkeeper Alliance
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“We have received numerous requests from those who knew and loved Larry Gibson for a way to share their memories with his family. He touched thousands upon thousands of lives and we’ve been overwhelmed by the notes people are leaving on his facebook profile, photos of people with him, and notes that we’re getting from people. We are setting up this form as a way that you can tell your favorite story or memory of Larry (or more than one if you’d be inclined to share them) that we can collect and give to his family”
− Keeper of the Mountains Foundation
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 Judy Bonds, Larry Gibson, and Chuck Nelson at the Hudson Bay Canvassers Conference in 2009 where they held workshops about mountaintop removal and Larry gave a plenary speech. photo: Jennifer Roddis CLEVELAND — Larry Gibson, who died Sunday at the age of 66, was the soul of courage, warmth and love. He who inspired generations of people, including many of us from Ohio Citizen Action, to join him in protecting his beloved Appalachian mountains from the scourge of mountaintop removal coal mining. We are all heartbroken at the loss of this wonderful man. We have posted below just a few of the many tributes that Larry’s friends have written over the past two days. Larry’s family will hold a private funeral tomorrow, with a public memorial service to be held at a later date.
Donations in Larry’s honor may be made to the Keeper of the Mountain Foundation.
— Sandy Buchanan, Executive Director, Ohio Citizen Action
— James Bruggers, Courier-Journal
— Chris Jordan-Bloch, EarthJustice
— Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian
— Liz Judge, EarthJustice
— Joan Mulhern, EarthJustice
CHARLESTON, WV — “Larry Gibson, a vocal opponent of the controversial practice of mountaintop removal mining and organizer of the long-running Mountain Keeper Music Festival, died of an apparent heart attack while working at his cabins on Kayford Mountain, his daughter, Victoria, said Sunday night.
…’When my dad passed away you could still smell the mountain air on him,’ Victoria said. ‘You could still see the dirt underneath his nails and the stains on his hands. He was working.’
‘He lived his life devoted to the mountain.’
Victoria, 24, could recall going with her father as a young child to speak out against mountaintop removal. He was passionate about the subject because it was destroying the home he knew as a child, she said.
‘He had so much fire in his voice,’ she said. ‘He had so much passion. It’d make you shake. He could bring a whole room of people to tears.’”
—Ashley B Craig, Charleston Daily Mail
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— Jeff Biggers, AlterNet
— Ken Ward, Jr., Coal Tattoo
 Ken Ward, Jr. LOUISVILLE, KY — “Murray Energy Corporation filed suit against environment reporter Ken Ward Jr. and the Charleston Gazette last month, and the case was recently transferred to federal district court. The complaint is on behalf of Murray Energy, its subsidiaries, and owner Bob Murray.
According to the complaint, an article Ward posted on his popular ‘Coal Tattoo’ blog was libelous. Murray claims the blog post—called ‘Mitt Romney, Murray Energy and Coal Criminals’ — has damaged his reputation and business and thus put the jobs Murray Energy provides in Belmont County, Ohio in jeopardy.
In the post, Ward mentions a fundraiser Murray held for Mitt Romney. He also mentions the Crandall Canyon Mine disaster in Utah. Crandall Canyon was operated by a Murray Energy subsidiary, and the company pleaded guilty to criminal mine safety violations for the accident that killed six miners and three rescue workers in August 2007. Ward also cites an Associated Press article that reports another Murray subsidiary in Ohio pleaded guilty to criminal violations of the Clean Water Act last month.”
— Erica Peterson, WFPL
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 Judy Bonds CHARLOTTE, NC — “The Democrats have nothing to lose. And everything to gain–especially the health and lives of residents in the coal mining areas of central Appalachia.
Calling it ‘Judy’s plank,’ in honor of beloved West Virginia mountaineer Judy Bonds, whose untimely death in 2011 served as a wakeup call to the mounting humanitarian and health care crises from mountaintop removal mining, the Democratic Party platform should officially include a commitment for an immediate moratorium on the devastating form of strip mining at their national convention in Charlotte on September 4th.
Ending one of the most blatant civil rights and environmental crimes is not just the right and moral thing to do. It would be a smart move for the Democrats and President Obama, whose recent pander to Big Coal in a bizarre Ohio ad against Romney was rightly denounced by environmentalists and health care advocates as a disgrace.”
— Jeff Biggers, Alternet
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WASHINGTON, DC — “In a shocking blow to besieged Appalachian coalfield residents today, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ruled in favor of a coal industry law suit, striking down the EPA’s modest guidance r ules on mountaintop removal mining.
Despite the mounting evidence of devastating human and health impacts linked to the extreme form of strip mining and documented contamination of waterways from mining fallout, which provides less than five percent of national coal production, the judge ruled that the EPA had overstepped its Clean Water Act mandates.
The question begs: Will the Obama administration now abandon coalfield residents to the whims of Big Coal machinations, or will President Obama finally step in and end one of the most egregious human rights and environmental violations in the nation?”
— Jeff Biggers, AlterNet
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 Protesters at Hobet mine in Lincoln County. LINCOLN COUNTY, WV — “Ramping up renewed efforts to end mountaintop removal mining in central Appalachia, scores of protesters staged a daring action at the controversial Hobet strip mine today in Lincoln County, West Virginia, shutting down operations through a series of coordinated lock downs, tree-sits and banner drops. In a symbolic challenge to the Obama administration’s failed regulatory policies, the protest targeted the Hobet 45 mountaintop removal mine, which had been granted a widely denounced permit over two years ago.
According to RAMPS, a West Virginia-based grassroots groups that organized the ‘mountain mobilization’ protest as part of a nationwide summer of actions against devastating extraction industry operations, St. Louis-based mine owner Patriot Coal has left behind a legacy of destruction in coal country for both area residents and miners. Patriot filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, which could also affect pension and United Mine Workers of America union contracts.
‘The government has aided and abetted the coal industry in evading environmental and mine safety regulations. We are here today to demand that the government and coal industry end strip mining, repay their debt to Appalachia, and secure a just transition for this region,’ said Dustin Steele of Matewan, West Virginia, in a released statement. The son and grandson of union coal miners, Steele took part in one of the truck lockdowns.”
 CINCINNATI — The Music for the Mountains 2011 compilation is now available as a digital download from This Is American Music! Twenty songs by artists like Magnolia Mountain, The Tillers, The Hiders, Shiny and the Spoon, Duquette Johnston, Chuck and Lisa from Wussy, Joey Kneiser from Glossary, Frontier Folk Nebraska, and more, all for a mere five dollars. All proceeds go to benefit Ohio Citizen Action and Kentuckians For The Commonwealth to help their fight against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining.
– Melissa K. English, Development Director, Ohio Citizen Action
WASHINGTON, DC — “As House Republicans this morning begin another in a series of their hearings trying to somehow turn the federal Office of Surface Mining’s somewhat bumbling efforts to rewrite the stream “buffer zone” rule into an attack on jobs as part of the Obama administration’s alleged “war on coal,” House Democrats are taking a different approach. They’re releasing a fascinating new report that documents where an increasing share of coal from mountaintop removal coal mining is going.
The report, called “Our Pain, Their Gain: Mountains Destroyed for Coal Shipped Overseas,” concludes:
Coal exports have nearly doubled since 2009 to 107 million tons last year, now accounting for almost 12 percent of U.S. production. Three out of every four tons that are exported come from the Appalachian region, and often this coal is produced by mountaintop removal mining — a devastating practice that has blanketed communities with soot, contaminated drinking water, and destroyed 2,000 miles of streams.”
— Ken Ward, Jr., Coal Tattoo
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TUCSON, AZ — “As the ravages of mountaintop removal coal mining–including the re-emerging scandal of reckless black lung policies on strip miners–continue to mount despite the shift of coal production to the heartland and western Power River Basin–President Obama has an election-year opportunity to declare an armistice in the polarized Appalachian coalfields, mend a 40-year mining policy of betrayal, and call an end to the most divisive and egregious human rights and environmental violation sanctioned by our federal government.
There is no two without three, as the saying goes: On the heels of recognizing the civil rights of gay marriage and deferring prosecution of undocumented DREAM Act youth, Obama should keep his 2008 campaign promise, travel to Appalachia and publicly announce a timeline to enact a mountaintop removal moratorium and launch a green jobs coalfield regeneration fund.
Let’s be real: With faux West Virginia Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin jumping ship, and a prison inmate giving the president a run for his money in the Democratic primaries, Obama has nothing to lose and everything to gain by bringing the Appalachian coalfields of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and eastern Tennessee into a new era of clean energy and sustainable economic development.”
— Jeff Biggers, AlterNet
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 From left, then-West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., bow their heads at a memorial service for the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., July 2, 2011 at the Capitol in Charleston, W.Va. CHARLESTON — “And in case you didn’t notice it, two words that weren’t mentioned in Sen. Rockefeller’s speech? That’s right: Mountaintop removal. That’s one key difference between this speech and the coal remarks from Sen. Byrd, who took on the controversial issue, saying:
The increased use of mountaintop removal mining means that fewer miners are needed to meet company production goals … It is also a reality that the practice of mountaintop removal mining has a diminishing constituency in Washington. It is not a widespread method of mining, with its use confined to only three states. Most members of Congress, like most Americans, oppose the practice, and we may not yet fully understand the effects of mountaintop removal mining on the health of our citizens.
Mostly what Sen. Rockefeller was doing was calling for an end to the senseless rhetoric, the absurd public relations campaigns, the nonsense that pollutes all of our political discussions in West Virginia that even remotely touch on coal”
—Ken Ward, Jr., Coal Tattoo
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 Jeff Biggers TUCSON, AZ – “This website is an informal archival collection of the coalfield writings of author and journalist Jeff Biggers. His work extensively covered the movements to end mountaintop removal mining, and the cultural and environmental legacies of strip mining in Appalachia for Salon, The Nation, Huffington Post, Washington Post, National Public Radio, CNN and other media outlets. In 2010, Biggers chronicled the history of coal mining–and the loss of his family’s historic homeplace to a strip mine in the Shawnee forest of southern Illinois–in his book, Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. In 2001, Biggers filed a story for Public Radio International on Eagle Creek, strip mining and mountaintop removal mining; in 2004, he co-edited No Lonesome Road: Selected Prose and Poems of Don West, which included an essay on strip mining in Appalachia. In 2006, Biggers published The United States of Appalachia, a cultural history of the region and dedicated a chapter to the impact of mountaintop removal. Biggers has been the recipient of the David Brower Award for Environmental Reporting, a Delta Award for Literature, and the American Book Award, among other honors.”
— Jeff Biggers
 Maria Gunnoe in Bobwhite, West Virginia. WASHINGTON, DC — “Last week, Gunnoe traveled to Washington DC to testify before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources on mountaintop removal mining. The hearing was a sham, set up as an occasion for lawmakers to bash the EPA and the Obama administration for slowing down mining permits and costing America jobs and wrecking the economy. Same old same old.
Gunnoe didn’t hold back: “There is a war in Appalachia, do believe this,” Gunnoe testified. “This war is not on coal, coal jobs, or the coal industry. This war is on these mountains, our water and the people who depend on it all.” (A PDF of her testimony is available here.)
But Gunnoe’s trip to Washington took a surreal turn when, just after she finished testifying, she was hauled off by U.S. Capitol Police and accused of possession of child pornography. The photo in question, included in a slide show presentation Gunnoe had prepared for the committee: a five-year-old Kentucky girl taking a bath orange water – water polluted by arsenic and other heavy metals caused by run-off from mountaintop removal mines. Sadly, it’s the same toxic water that people in Appalachia who live around coal mines drink all too often– and one of the reasons why cancer and birth defect rates are so high in parts of southern Appalachia. As a visual image of the suffering that coal mining brings to the people of Appalachia, the photo is devastatingly powerful.
— Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone
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Letters supporting the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act 9,241 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and made personal phone calls urging state legislators to support the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act as of June 10, 2013.
Ohio coal-fired power plants
Mountaintop removal coal mining
Letters to Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Rob Portman 6,615 members have sent handwritten letters and petitions to Senator Brown urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
3,751 members have petitioned Senator Portman urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
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