http://reuters.excite.com/article/20060911/2006-09-11T001225Z_01_N10453431_RTRIDST_0_POLITICS-PROTEST-MINING-GRANDPA-DC.htmlGrandpa marches on DC for clean air and safe schools
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Sep 10, 8:12 PM (ET)
By Lisa Lambert
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ed Wiley, a West Virginia grandfather, is marching on Washington, walking hundreds of miles on mountain roads to entreat the federal government to do what local officials won't do: Move a schoolhouse that sits yards away from a coal silo he says makes kids sick.
"This school has to be moved," said Wiley, 49, standing on a two-lane road in the Appalachian coalfields. "This is a toxic site. It has to go."
Goals Coal, a Massey Energy subsidiary, stores coal waste and chemicals in a 2.8 billion-gallon pond up the mountain from Marsh Fork Elementary, where Wiley's granddaughter attended school. Less than 100 yards from the playground, a silo holds coal processed at an adjacent plant.
Wiley, a former coal industry contractor, and his neighbors say the company plans to erect a second silo nearby that will produce even more coal dust and potentially sicken more of Marsh Fork's 220 pupils.
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