Earth Quaker Action Team

George Lakey and Sharon Canton

A Wake-up Call in Appalachia

“Stop a minute and listen to the birds,” Larry Gibson said. We didn’t hear any.

Our group—seven Swarthmore College students and three members of the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) from Philadelphia—had traveled to Larry’s land on top of Kayford Mountain in West Virginia to see the brutality of mountaintop removal (MTR) surface mining for coal.

Blasting the tops off mountains destroys forests and the mountains themselves, buries valleys, contaminates streams and rivers, destroys biodiversity, and ruins peoples’ lives and communities. We read about the toxic chemicals that MTR deposits in the mountain valley villages’ water supply. Now we could see one of those communities nestled below, where the steep sides of Kayford Mountain and Coal River Mountain joined.

“The people down there are living in a war zone,” Larry said. “It’s a war against nature using dynamite and huge machines, and it hurts all our families. Their houses shake when Massey Coal blows up the mountain. The water goes bad, the air goes bad, and sometimes people are even hurt or killed by the flying debris.”

Larry led us along the ridge to the edge of his property, the breeze turning stiffer as the path grew narrower. Then, suddenly, we were standing above the lunar landscape of a slaughtered mountain. In the distance, looking like tiny children’s toys, yellow bulldozers rested from their labor of pushing debris over the side of what mountain remained. Beds of dynamite were already laid out for the next onslaught where black rock indicated the presence of coal.

While Massey Energy Company wants to blow up the land where Larry’s family has lived for generations, Larry has turned down millions of dollars and withstood violent intimidation to keep his home. He told us, “I’ve put the property into a land trust, so whatever happens to me, this part of the mountain will be safe. I just wish the country would wake up and save the rest.”

Bank Like Appalachia Matters (BLAM!)

Mountaintop removal and its consequences are part of the larger challenge of global warming. As burning coal releases more carbon dioxide than any other source of energy, ecological activists must help sway large actors to motivate systemic changes away from a coal-based economy. Coal is not, and cannot be, clean or green.

EQAT (pronounced “equate”) is a new group of Friends and friends of Friends who join millions of people around the world fighting for our threatened planet. Our mission is to build a just and sustainable economy through campaigns that draw on the Quaker legacy of nonviolent direct action. We are based in Philadelphia but open to becoming national. We’ve started with one campaign but are open to joining others as we grow.

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