Last week I traveled to West Virginia with a few friends and loaded a pickup truck with dirt from the coalfields. We then drove the dirt to the EPA’s headquarters in Washington DC and dumped it onto the sidewalk in front of the building. The pile of dirt was meant to be a reminder for the EPA to do its job, protect the streams in Appalachia, and to veto the Spruce Mine MTR Permit.
Now we’ve got this great video that documents the action:
[youtube sbfwcE6FGr8]
Of course, at the end of the action two of us were cited by the Washington DC police for “failure to obey an order to remedie a dangerous condition.” As I sat in the police station yesterday waiting to pay the fines all I could think was how ironic it was for RAN to get cited at the EPA while companies in Appalachia continue to blast apart mountains, poison drinking water and devastate communities.
I was more than happy to pay the citations that we received last week. However, I hope that our paying $200 in fines for dirtying 20 square feet of concrete in downtown Washington DC will put pressure on the EPA to stand strong against Arch Coal – the company that plans to devastate 2000 acres of Appalachia and bury 7 miles of streams under the Spruce Mine permit.
-Annie