Activists trying to save the Blair Mountain battlefield from coal
mining planned Friday protests in West Virginia and Missouri, at the
offices of two companies that control access to much of the land where
unionizing coal miners fought authorities in 1921.
A coalition of historic preservationists, environmentalists and others
targeted both the Huntington offices of Natural Resource Partners and
the St. Louis headquarters of Arch Coal. They're among several coal
companies that either own or lease land on the Logan County mountain and
control its coal reserves. Some have permits to mine.
Neither company immediately commented Friday.
Activists have been fighting to protect the 1,600-acre battlefield and
get it re-listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They've
been promoting the two demonstrations on Facebook and waged a call-in
campaign to Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin this week.
Spokeswoman Kimberly Osborne said the governor's office received 115 calls between Tuesday and noon Thursday.
"While I understand the concern," Tomblin said in a statement emailed
to The Associated Press, "there are two lawsuits concerning this land
that are working their way through the judicial process on the state and
federal levels."
Tomblin also said that the state Department of Environmental
Protection "has and continues to act in accordance to the law" in the
dispute.
The battle at Blair was the nation's largest armed uprising since the
Civil War, and the Logan County mountain is considered an important site
in the American labor movement. Some 10,000 coal miners faced down a
dug-in army of police and private security guards in a battle that left
16 men dead before the miners surrendered to federal troops.
Chuck Keeney, chairman of Friends of Blair Mountain, said his group is not endorsing the protests.
"We're obviously not condemning them, either," he said.
Friends of Blair Mountain is building a community center and museum in
Blair and has developed a plan for a state park that follows the model
of Stonewall Resort in Lewis County, which is publicly funded but
privately run. The group wants a moratorium on new mining activities and
time to conduct a full archaeological study of the site.
Keeney said the protesters are continuing a momentum they developed
last summer when hundreds staged a 50-mile march from Charleston to
Blair.
They're also responding to what Keeney says are signs that Arch
operations may be inching closer to the battlefield. The company is
seeking new permits, and Keeney said some Blair residents have received
buyout offers for their properties.
"I don't think that blasting is imminent," he said, "but by the time
it gets to the point where blasting is imminent, it will be too late."
The battlefield was briefly added to the National Register, then
removed when private property owners objected. A fight over whether it
should be relisted is continuing in U.S. District Court in Washington,
D.C.
The activists also sued the DEP in Kanawha County Circuit Court last
year after the DEP declared the site unsuitable for mining.
The DEP ruled that about 30 percent of the land is exempt from that
declaration because it's already covered under mining permits, while
other areas are exempt because there is clear evidence of past mining
activity.
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