"Coal Quality" '05

Huntington Confronts Industry Myths

Huntington, WV -- On October 19th and 20th, as the 'Coal Quality '05' Expo took place in Huntington, local community members took the opportunity to stand in solidarity with their neighbors in the coalfields, just an hour south of the city. 'Coal Quality '05' was intended to be an opportunity for industry representatives to meet one another and discuss the technologies and methods involved in the process of preparing coal for shipment and incineration. This practice includes the construction of giant toxic sludge lakes such as the 2.8 billion gallons perched precariously above Marsh Fork Elementary School in Raleigh County.

Staging a candlelight vigil on the evening of the nineteenth, and a march on the twentieth, between forty and fifty local residents as well as several folks who traveled to Huntington from West Virginia's southern coalfields told the true story of 'Coal Travesty '05'. The group informed hundreds of passersby as to the horrors of sludge impoundments and Mountain Top Removal, engaged in productive dialogue with conference goers themselves and acted out a skit in which a lemonade stand had been converted to a sludge stand where a predatory peddler pushed the poison on children wearing shirts that read "Marsh Fork Elementary Honor Student".

The message of the events was clear - Mountain Top Removal and Sludge Impoundments are not safe and the people of the Appalachian Coalfields should not have to live with their ever-present dangers. Ultimately the 'Coal Travesty '05' demonstrations served as yet another example of the citizens of West Virginia speaking loud and clear to governor Joe Manchin, the demands - "Do the right thing for the kids at Marsh Fork and all coalfield residents. Stop sacrificing the well-being and indeed the lives of West Virginians for the sake of profit for King Coal!"

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