Massey Energy Have a 2.8 BILLION GALLON Coal Slurry Pond Sitting Above an Elementary School!

[Turborama]

After listening to Cenk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q79c_okixYM">explaining how Massey has managed to get away with manslaughter by embedding one of their own in the Busch administration and flagrantly ignoring health and safety regulations, it got me even more worried about the kids in this school.

Marsh Fork Elementary, Massey Energy's Shumate Coal Sludge Impoundment and Goals Coal Prep Plant



The Marsh Fork Elementary School in Raleigh County with the light green lawn and white buildings is in the foreground at left. Just behind the school is a blue bend in the Marsh Fork of the Little Coal River. Across the river to the right is the coal silo--just 150 feet from the school. Though not readily visible, train tracks run beside the silo. Concerned parents worry that coal dust and the chemicals used in processing coal and loading it from the silo onto the train are drifting onto school grounds. Prove this yourself--walk barefoot through the playground and take a look at your toes.

Across the river and left are the blue buildings of the Goals Coal Processing Plant, a subsidiary of Massey Energy. To learn more about the dangerous chemicals used in coal prep plants, see the Why Worry section of this website. Above the prep plant, a road zigzags up the face of an earthen dam holding back billions of gallons of coal sludge in Massey's leaking Shumate impoundment. A worker at this site, now alleges he is gravely ill from the chemicals used on site. He says portions of this dam where not constructed properly and Mine Safety and Health Administration records support his statements. Beyond the impoundment --that black lake of toxic goo--another Massey Energy subsidiary, Independence Coal, is starting an 1,849 acre strip mine. How crazy to have blasting at this strip mine above an impoundment held by a violation-prone earthen dam--just 400 yards from an elementary school!

From: http://www.sludgesafety.org/what_me_worry/marsh_fork/index.html

Recipe for disaster? The elementary school, the coal silo, the coal preparation plant, the dam, the sludge lake and the mountaintop removal.

Taken in 2006


3 Years Later

{{{{http://www.flickr.com/photos/vivian_stockman/sets/72157619560758184/">MORE PHOTOS}}}}

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[hedgehog]

1. For the younger folks here:

On the 21st of October 1966, 144 people, 116 of them children, were killed when a man-made mountain of coal waste slid onto the village of Aberfan in South Wales. The elementary school building was the first structure in its path and the school was demolished by a thousand tons of black mud.




http://www.rapo.com/icrgallery/Aberfan.htm

[MadMaddie]

2. Have you heard the latest rw talking point? It's President' Obama's

fault apparantly for not pushing the "voluntary law" that the previous president passed. That's right.....not a word about deregulation and the placement of a coal mine croany who was in charge of mining etc in the US (oh yea that coal mining croany worked for Massey industries).

:wtf:

[hootinholler]

3. "Forget everything you know about mining, Massey does it differently."

Heard on the radio in a piece about Massey mining.

-Hoot

[Webster Green]

4. "Massey does it differently."

Nothing to worry about! Everything is A-OK!

[hootinholler]

5. You know that is the perfect doppleganger!

I've often thought of Boss Hog Blankenship.

-Hoot

[mod mom]

6. OSU President Gordon Gee state on their board for 10 years until activists changed his mind:

Here is a grood synopsis of the pressure we activists placed on him until he resigned last May:

http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/coal/gee.html



He collected $200,000/year to sit on the Massey board, besides over $1,100,000 he makes as OSU president. Perhaps he should consider donating that Massey blood money to the miners & their families!



The board also raised Gee's $775,000 base salary by 3.5 percent, to $802,125. And the trustees awarded him a $310,000 bonus, worth 40 percent of last year's base salary.

-snip
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/11/08/paygee.ART_ART_11-08-08_A1_JFBR1J4.html

[sabrina 1]

7. In January of this year, Massey was threatened with a

lawsuit that claimed he had 12,000 violations of polution laws.

http://enviroknow.com/tag/lawsuit/

How he has managed to get away with what he has been doing, is what needs to be investigated. He didn't do it alone.

Eg, he was sued by another mine owner, Caperton, who claimed he had put him out of business. Caperton won the suit and was awarded 50 million dollars. Then there were appeals. Massey won the first appeal. Caperton appealed that ruling after photos emerged of Massey playing golf with one of the judges. Then Massey spent 3 million dollars to help get another judge who was friendly towards him, elected. That judge ruled against Caperton in the next appeal. The third appeal was also won by Caperton, after that judge was removed. The ruling was based on the fact that Caperton's mine was in Virginia and the case should not have been heard in WV.

http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=70202&catid=166

Since this tragedy occurred, a request was made to revisit that case but has been turned down.

There is so much background, most of it bad, on this guy you have to wonder why he was still in business.

It's too late for those 29 miners, but this whole thing stinks and lots of people had to be aware of how dangerous his operation was.

The Obama administration disappointed environmentalists recently when it was learned that after announcing a crackdown on mountain-top removal, they quietly issued six permits for more mountain-top removal.

Like so many other promises, people are beginning to wonder if the administration has backed away from its original strong position on this issue.

Maybe this tragedy will give them the opportunity to go back to their original promise and end this devastating practice for good.

[Turborama]

11. There's the Martin County coal-slurry disaster (2000) & the fatal Aracoma Mine fire (2006), too

I can't believe how he's still in business, either. He and his corporation should be charged with manslaughter, IMO.

I think this could be the disturbing article Cenk was referring to in the TYT piece I linked to above.

Don Blankenship’s record of profits over safety: ‘Coal pays the bills’

After the worst coal mining disaster in at least 25 years, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship is facing long-overdue scrutiny for his record of putting coal profits over fundamental safety and health concerns. Blankenship, a right-wing activist millionaire who sits on the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association, used his company’s ties to the industry-dominated Bush administration to paper over Massey’s egregious environmental and health violations. Massey rewarded Republicans with massive donations after the company avoided paying billions in fines for a 2000 coal slurry disaster in Martin County, three times bigger than the Exxon Valdez. After both mine inspectors and Massey employees got the same message that it was more important to “run coal” than to follow safety rules, a deadly fire broke out in the Aracoma Alma mine in 2006, burning two men alive.

Blankenship was abetted by former employees placed at the highest levels of the federal mine safety system. Massey COO Stanley Suboleski was named a commissioner of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission in 2003 and was nominated in December 2007 to run the Energy Department’s Office of Fossil Energy. Suboleski is now back on the Massey board. After being rejected twice by the Senate, one-time Massey executive Dick Stickler was put in charge of the MSHA in a recess appointment in October 2006. In the 1990s, Stickler oversaw Massey subsidiary Performance Coal, the operator of the deadly Upper Big Branch Mine, after managing Beth Energy mines, which “incurred injury rates double the national average.” Bush named Stickler acting secretary when the recess appointment expired in January 2008.

Below are further details of these two past incidents that foretold Blankenship’s latest disaster (includes a lot of embedded links): http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-07-don-blankenships-record-of-profits-over-safety-coal-pays-the-bil/

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With regards to the moutain top removal, "Maybe this tragedy will give them the opportunity to go back to their original promise and end this devastating practice for good." I am usually an optimistic person and hope you're right. However, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x346587">this short and eye opening Al Jazeera English documentary gives a good insight into how the coal lobbyists still reign in DC (particularly part 2 which I can't believe has still got so few views - this documentary should have gone viral) and I'm worried this quietly issuing of permits you mentioned means they've won again. I missed that news, do you have a link, please?

The main reason I supported Obama was because of his environmental and renewable energy platforms. If he's reneging on those campaign promises that'll be the final straw for me.

[sabrina 1]

13. Hi Turborama. Thank you for that link to the

documentary. I have not seen it, will watch it though.

Here is one link that mentions the permits issued last Spring. It is part of a much longer article about the whole tragedy of mountai-top removal and strip mining:

'Regulating' Mountaintop Removal or Sanctioning Human Rights Abuses?

Abetting Historicide: Does Nancy Sutley's Regulatory Banter Cover Up Crimes Against Coalfield Residents?

And yet, EPA's Acting Assistant Administrator Michael H. Shapiro, in announcing the EPA's sign-off on 42 of 48 mining permits, wrote last spring: "I understand the importance of coal mining in Appalachia for jobs, the economy and meeting the nation's energy needs."

Another link confirming that those permits were quietly granted:

'Appalachian Apocalypse': Obama Permits Mountaintop Removal Mining

EPA greenlights mountaintop removal mining permits late on a Friday.

My friend Jeff Biggers, a noted author on Appalachia and a strong ally in the fight against mountaintop removal, just emailed me the link to his latest HuffPo blog with a one-word note: "depressing." One click revealed the shocking, utterly heartbreaking news that the Environmental Protection Agency appears poised to let the Army Corps of Engineers proceed with its plan to approve dozens of MTR permits that have been under scrutiny by order of the Obama administration.

The article outlines the original promise, and the hold-up of over 200 applications. But with the issuance of those permits, it looks like the Mining Lobby is still very strong in DC.

[Turborama]

15. Thank you for those links, Sabrina

My memory is a bit hazy about what went on with the permits last year and those articles are worth bookmarking. I'm trying to catch up on what's been going on lately with Coal River Mountain & mountaintop removal in general and have found this site's news aggregator has loads of articles well worth going though: http://www.ohvec.org/index.html

This one from January, for example, seems reassuring...

EPA Sharply Limits Mountaintop Mining

Environmentalists Cheer New Guidelines as Coal Interests Protest

The White House on Thursday took a giant leap toward eliminating new mountaintop coal mining projects in the Appalachian states, issuing strict new http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/guidance/pdf/appalachian_mtntop_mining_summary.pdf">guidelines designed to protect headwater streams by curbing the practice of dumping waste in neighboring valleys.

Announcing the changes, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said the guidelines are intended to make the standards governing new mountaintop projects “clear and consistent,” following a series of EPA decisions over the past year that stakeholders on all sides of the debate found contradictory.

=snip=

Yet the practical effect of the new standards — which will require mining operations to control levels of toxins in nearby streams — will be to minimize, if not outright preclude, the dumping of mining waste in valleys below the mines. Because the coal industry maintains that most mountaintop projects wouldn’t be worth the additional cost of trucking the debris to more distant dumping sites, the guidelines — if properly enforced — could end most new mountaintop projects before they ever begin.

=snip=

The new standards will apply to all mountaintop operations proposed in the future, as well as the nearly http://washingtonindependent.com/58689/epa-puts-brakes-on-surface-mining-in-appalachia">80 pending mountaintop permits the EPA is currently reviewing. The guidelines are specific to the Appalachian states only. “You can’t take this data and apply it outside the region,” Jackson said. But she broached the possibility that the standards could also apply to non-mining projects — things like roads — within the Appalachian states.

Full article with a lot more info: http://washingtonindependent.com/81245/epa-sharply-limits-mountaintop-mining

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That documentary I linked to above contains details of a really good solution to the 'Appalachian Apocalypse' and it's extremely frustrating that President Obama hasn't picked up that ball and run with it (yet?).

BTW, I've just posted a clip of Blankenship in the videos forum that made my blood boil when I saw it. Check it out, if your blood pressure can handle it... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x454255

[sabrina 1]

17. Going to check out your latest post in a few minutes.

I did look at your excellent OP from last August and see that Massey has been on the radar screen for a long time. Blankenship is an enforcer and since this operation seems to own the politicians and the courts, no wonder nothing was done to stop them. Even Rahal, a Democrat, in one of your links, seemed to feel obligated to state that the coal industry would not be going anywhere for a long time. That's disappointing as I always liked him.

It looks like their power is so great in that state, that nothing can be done there. If it's true that they can ruin a politician, evene physically harm people there, then the Federal Government will have to step in.

As far as Obama's policies, it is possible that he did not understand what they would be up against in WV until they got involved. This tragedy WILL give them momentum which needs to be jumped on right now. The public has a short memory so they need to stride now and start investigations of corruption and issuing subpoenas with the goal of prosecuting and removing these thugs from the business of coal mining.

I do agree that he should back the Wind Energy project now. Massey is so corrupt that I cannot imagine with a Federal Investigation he could be convicted of crimes that would keep him busy for a while.

You have done some great work on this Turborama, I am bookmarking your OPs to read and go through the links later.

I am not sure but the documentary mentioned in the link, the one 'they do not want anyone to see', I would like to see that, all three parts.

Thanks again for all the information.

[truedelphi]

8. But Turborama , according to Presidential directive 9123465429,

This is actually a "clean" coal slurry pond.

Nothing to see here, now back to school, little darlings.

[malaise]

9. When the sludge buries the school full of children

They'll say the children are in a better place - wait they're saying that about the miners right now. It will be the fault of everyone except big corporations and officials living of the profits.

[ihavenobias]

10. # 15. n/t

[Turborama]

12. Video made by a grandfather & a poem written by a grandmother...

WWW.PENNIESOFPROMISE.ORG


Ed Wiley discussing Marsh Fork Elementary school and the coal-loading silo behind it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9afd2K6xx_I

In the Grip of Terror at Marsh Fork

Debbie Jarrell, Rock Creek, WV; originally printed as a letter to the editor in the Appalchian Voice


Dear Editor,

I hope this finds you doing well. I enjoyed the visit with you and compadres, and I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon. I am going to attempt to type my poem that I had printed in the newspaper. This was written when I had enough of just sitting quietly by and letting my granddaughter be one of the mice in the world’s dumping ground.

SITTING QUIET AS DARK TERROR GRIPS MY HEART

I have sat quiet as the shiny sterilized truck marked “radioactive” slips up the hollow at the edge of dark.

I have sat quiet as the coal truck haulage covered by tarp, permeates the air with the stench smell of rancid garbage down Route 3.

I have sat quiet as the dark holes on Montcoal Mountain have been filled in and filled in, giving the impression of undisturbed graves.

I have sat quiet as the hoses have been laid over the edge of the slurry pond under the guise of darkness, pumping out filthy black slurry hurriedly before inspectors came.

I have sat quiet as the run-off from the ponds have been guided to our mountain springs- chemicals added making the water appear clean, preventing the glancing eyes from knowing their dark secrets.

I have sat quiet as the massive dirt dams have been erected, peering out over the mountains and looking as ominous as Godzilla in Hong Kong.

I have sat quiet as one by one our mountains are made to look like flattened biscuit dough as the chef rolls and manipulates it with his hand.

I have sat quiet as the men from the mines get their disability checks for black lung from the air they breathe, yet watch as my granddaughter mounts her schoolbus only to breathe the same air as the miner, day after day.

I have sat quiet as I tell my granddaughter, when rains trouble me, “stay home today, there may be a little flooding” not wanting her to be aware of the dark terror that grips my heart.

I can honestly say I sit quiet no more.

From (with more videos and pictures): http://www.ilovemountains.org/memorial/c301/

[sabrina 1]

14. Sad, thank you for those links Turborama.

This whole issue needs much, much more exposure. I am afraid that once the media stops covering this latest disaster, it will all fade away again, until the next time.

Those poor people, they really do not have a voice at all ...

[Petrushka]

16. K & R

:thumbsup:

[Hubert Flottz]

18. "Friends of Coal" are not friends of "Tree Hugging" kids...

Those kids need to quit school and get a good job...

A Pictorial Walk Through
the 20th Century

Little Miners

http://www.msha.gov/CENTURY/LITTLE/PAGE2.asp

Edit...Like the blood sucking coal barons of Old, Dangerous Donnie thinks there is no big difference in the meaning of the words Minor and Miner!