"He's a snake in the grass, I tell ya guys; he may look dumb but that's just a disguise; he's a mastermind in the ways of espionage." Charlie Daniels, "Uneasy Rider" Almost levelled, West Virginia: Crooked justice allows mountain-top removal practices to freely injure homes and health - TT's Lost in Tokyo

Almost levelled, West Virginia: Crooked justice allows mountain-top removal practices to freely injure homes and health

... with the federal government, state and union all firmly in the pocket of coal firms.

This seems to be a classic case, on a huge scale, of the difficulties individual property owners and communities face when confronting clearly wrongful acts by large corporations with deep pockets - and how easily our governments and courts are suborned from their duties to enforce property rights or other laws protecting lives, health and property.

The influence and corruption goes all the way up, as this discussion of recusals and non-recusals by W. Va. Supreme Court  justices illustrates: 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/20/11531/8589

[Note: desnarked in light of fair comment.]

 

Background:

Here is a partial list  - just scratching the surface - of resources on this topic:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Mountaintop+removal+mining

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080219/cm_thenation/769287429

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23coal.html?ex=1345521600&en=3d104863e0d4d655&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6462-2004Aug16.html

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/mountaintop-removal-mining-permits-illegal.html

 

http://www.ilovemountains.org/ - this site has great Google Earth links 

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/you-are-connected-to-mountaintop.html

http://www.700mountains.org/

 

http://www.kftc.org/our-work/canary-project/campaigns/mtr/MTR-generalinfo

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/

http://www.stopmountaintopremoval.org/

http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php

 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/21/11552/5722

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/16/142954/768

http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/16/reece/index.html

http://grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/16/caskey/index.html#spadaro

http://grist.org/news/daily/2000/10/18/top/index.html

 

http://www.appvoices.org/index.php?/site/mtr_overview/

http://www.christiansforthemountains.org/

 

Multimedia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Zb3Tb0oSM

http://www.blackdiamondsmovie.com/Trailer.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPixjCneseE

http://www.vbs.tv/player.php?bctid=494918454&bccl=NDEzMjk4MjU0X19ORVdT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZoQ5Gw0r7Q&feature=user

http://www.hawriverfilms.com/id2.html

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Mountain+Top+Removal%22+&search_type=

 

http://www.ilovemountains.org/multimedia

 

http://www.wvculture.org/history/buffcreek/buff1.html

http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007/

Published Mon, Mar 3 2008 10:15 PM by TokyoTom
Filed under: , , , , , ,

Comments

# re: Are those whose homes and health are injured by mountain-top removal in Appalachia snivelling, evil enviros?

Monday, March 3, 2008 9:49 AM by Geoffrey Allan Plauché

This blogpost isn't very constructive, Tom. The tone is miscalculated. And continually accusing Austro-libertarians of being hypocrites on private property rights, contrary to all evidence, is insulting and counterproductive. For one thing, you can't expect all of us to know about a particular local case before it is brought to our attention, but you appear to blame us here for not knowing. For another, you can't expect all of us to drop our other projects and leap to the aid of the local inhabitants, as you appear to in this post. What are YOU doing for them? Aside from badgering us with insulting and either disingenuous or ill-informed posts this? You know very well that we defend private property rights and that we are against anyone, including companies, receiving government permission and protection to do violate them. Why would local private property owners merely wanting to defend their private property be viewed by us as sniveling, evil enviros? That's just insulting, Tom, and you should know better.

# re: Almost levelled, West Virginia: Crooked justice allows mountain-top removal practices to freely injure homes and health

Saturday, March 15, 2008 11:51 AM by Juan

Great ecoterrorist resource. Thanks!

# re: Almost levelled, West Virginia: Crooked justice allows mountain-top removal practices to freely injure homes and health

Thursday, March 20, 2008 4:39 AM by TokyoTom

Juan, thanks for your comment.  When I orginally posted a more sarcastic take on the property and human rights violations that are occuring in the Appalachians, Geoffrey Plauche upbraided me for being unfair.  But was I really?  As you illustrate so well, this site is full of the small-minded, who actually DO view "local private property owners merely wanting to defend their private property ... as sniveling, evil enviros".

Thanks for proving me right, and Geoffrey wrong.

# Jim Hansen warns of slow-motion disaster and welcomes future public trials of fossil CEOs for buying government delay

Monday, June 30, 2008 12:56 AM by TT`s Lost in Tokyo

Prominent climatologist Dr. James Hansen , Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and

# Jim Hansen warns of slow-motion disaster and welcomes future public trials of fossil fuel CEOs for buying government delay

Monday, June 30, 2008 3:14 AM by TT`s Lost in Tokyo

Prominent climatologist Dr. James Hansen , Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and

# Jim Hansen warns of slow-motion disaster and welcomes future public trials of fossil fuel CEOs for buying government delay

Monday, June 30, 2008 8:57 AM by TT`s Lost in Tokyo

Prominent climatologist Dr. James Hansen , Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and

# Jim Hansen warns of slow-motion disaster and welcomes future public trials of fossil fuel CEOs for buying government delay

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 11:51 PM by TT`s Lost in Tokyo

Prominent climatologist Dr. James Hansen , Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and

# Breaking the impasse on ANWR and OCS exploration and development Part II; a response to Bob Murphy

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 7:43 AM by TT`s Lost in Tokyo

On the main Mises blog, Bob Murphy has just advocated opening ANWR and the OCS to oil and natural gas

# Rob Bradley cheers on coal, but are all those who want to better manage commons and environmental impacts "Malthusian" idiots, or only in the case of coal?

Thursday, February 5, 2009 3:04 AM by TT`s Lost in Tokyo

Rob Bradley has a new post up at MasterResource , cheering on big (and now "clean") coal, which

# Steven Milloy on RFK, Jr.; yet another thoughtful green-hater

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 3:23 AM by TT`s Lost in Tokyo

Anti-enviro Steven Milloy ,adjunct scholar at CEI, author and co-founder of a gadfly free-enterprise