FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 29, 2013

Contact: Arielle Klagsbrun, MORE, arielle@organizemo.org

3 Arrested at Peabody Shareholder Meeting in Gillette, WY

Groups from Wyoming, Black Mesa, St. Louis and Colorado Join Together to Confront World’s Largest Coal Company

GILLETTE, WY– Peabody Energy shareholders affiliated with Powder River Basin Resource Council, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), CO-FORCE (Coloradans for Fair Rates and Clean Energy), and Forgotten People from Black Mesa/Big Mountain in Arizona converged in Gillette, Wyoming, on Monday, April 29, 2013, at Peabody’s Annual General Meeting. Peabody has always held its meeting near its headquarters in St. Louis, but moved it this year to avoid public scrutiny. After the meeting, an activist affiliated with MORE was arrested dropping a banner saying, “Peabody Attacks: Pensions, Diné Lands, Climate.” 2 other activists were arrested taking a picture in solidarity with the United Mine Workers of America. Many shareholders were held in an “overflow room,” where they watched the meeting on a screen, though reports say, there were many open seats in the main room.

Shareholders asked targeted questions to CEO Greg Boyce and the Peabody Board of Directors regarding its current business model which consistently externalizes its costs to coal mine neighbors, workers, and the environment. Peabody’s creation of now-bankrupt Patriot Coal to unload its pension and healthcare obligations to retired miners is a recent example of how Peabody disregards its own workers. Shareholders stood with the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in Gillette in demanding that Peabody pay its retired miners what they were promised, while thousands more rallied in St. Louis.

Just as Peabody is threatening the livelihoods of UMWA retirees, Peabody was also confronted today by two residents of the Black Mesa/Big Mountain area in Arizona. For decades, Peabody has been involved in the forced relocation of tens of thousands of Diné and Hopi on Black Mesa. In January, residents of Black Mesa attempted to meet with CEO Greg Boyce in St. Louis. He refused, and twelve people were arrested attempting to deliver a letter from Black Mesa residents to Peabody.

“This winter, we travelled to Peabody’s headquarters in St. Louis to bring them a message from the people of Black Mesa, whom Peabody is displacing from their ancestral lands to expand their strip mines. Instead of holding a dialogue, Boyce hid behind security and hired police; now we have come to Gillette so that we can express our concerns face-to-face,” said Don Yellowman, of Forgotten People on Black Mesa/Big Mountain in Arizona.

Shareholders also drew attention to Peabody’s attempts to cheat American taxpayers by leasing artificially cheap coal from the Bureau of Land Management. This practice is now under unprecedented investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the Department of the Interior, and Congress, and it could pose a large risk to the financial viability of Peabody’s mining efforts in the Powder River Basin. Today, over 135,000 petitions were delivered to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell calling for a moratorium on new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin. The petitions follow an April 15 letter to Secretary Jewell signed by the leaders of 21 environmental, public health, consumer rights and community organizations calling for a moratorium and comprehensive review of the federal coal leasing program.

“Peabody’s chickens have come home to roost,” stated LJ Turner, a Wyoming rancher who lives near Peabody’s North Antelope Rochelle Mine. “For too long, Peabody has ignored the true cost of its coal mines in the Powder River Basin, but now Congress and others are starting to pay attention to the impacts of mining on people, our air and land, and the climate.”

Shareholders’ concerns are underlined by a recent subpoena of Peabody by the Securities and Exchange Commission, related to the building and development of the Prairie State Energy Campus in Marissa, IL. Peabody, once the full developer of the project, sold of 95% of the plant to hundreds of towns and cities across the Midwest who are now paying for the plant’s extreme cost overruns in their monthly bills.

All 12 arrestees from Jan. 26 #StopPeabody action have been released from jail! However, one activist is still in jail after his Jan. 22 arrest at Arch Coal’s headquarters.

Please consider a contribution to the Legal Defense Fund to support these great folks and David.

Yesterday was an amazing coming together of East and West, Native people and non-Native supporters, to confront Peabody Energy’s trail of destruction and despair. The national anti-extraction movement continues to grow. Here’s a collection of videos and photos from the two MORE-RAMPS-BMIS Winter Action Camp actions, and the letter from Black Mesa to Peabody:

• Letter from Black Mesa to Peabody Energy
• http://empowerblackmesa.org
• http://forgottennavajopeople.com
• Press packet from StopPeabody action
• Press release from StopPeabody action
• Wrap-up post from StopPeabody action
• Press release from Arch Coal action
• Wrap-up post from Arch Coal action

There’s also several statements from arrestees available on the RAMPS and MORE websites. Just scroll through the posts.

ST. LOUIS, MO — About one hundred of protesters are gathered in downtown St. Louis today outside of the Peabody Coal corporate headquarters. St. Louis locals were joined by Navajo residents from Black Mesa, Ariz., Appalachians from coal-burdened West Virginia, and supporters from across the United States to demand the cessation of strip mining and accountability for land and people.  Navajo residents of Black Mesa, Don Yellowman and Fern Benally demanded to speak with Peabody CEO Greg H. Boyce and deliver a letter detailing their concerns.   (Read it here.)  Twelve protesters were arrested for linking arms and refusing to leave Peabody property when Boyce refused to meet with Navajo representatives.  Protesters included representatives from Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, Radical Action for Mountain People’s Survival, Black Mesa Indigenous Support, Veterans for Peace, SEIU and other labor unions.   Activists dropped from two nearby buildings reading, “Stop the War on Mother Earth.  Peabody: Bad for St. Louis, Bad for the Planet” and “Peabody Kills.”

According to eye witnesses, the police used pain compliance pressure points and twisting heads and arrested the protesters.  One arrested member of Veterans for Peace person was handcuffed, walking compliantly with police and was suddenly thrown to the ground by the police.  Those arrested were charged with trespassing, resisting arrest and failure to disburse. The rest of the protesters, upset by Peabody’s unresponsiveness and the police violence, took the march into the streets of St. Louis with a banner reading, “St. Louis! Stop Subsidizing the Climate Crisis”.  After marching through the streets, the protest returned to Peabody Headquarters and disbursed.

Peabody, the largest coal company in the U.S., operates massive strip mines on Black Mesa, Ariz., ancestral homelands of the Navajo people. Tens of thousands of Navajo families have been forcibly relocated in order to clear the land for Peabody’s strip mines; this constitutes the largest forced relocation of indigenous peoples in the U.S since the Trail of Tears. To this day, Navajo and Hopi people are engaged in resistance to the forced relocation and mining practices threaten the land and livelihood of future generations.

In nearly 45 years of operation, Peabody’s mines on Black Mesa have been the source of over 325 million tons of carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere#. The strip mines have damaged countless graves, sacred sites, and homes. 70 percent of a once-pristine desert aquifer has been drained for coal operations. The remaining groundwater is polluted, causing devastation to a once-flourishing ecosystem.

“The mine affects lots of ways of life. It’s destroying the places that have names. Everywhere you go here, every place has a name: names I learned from my grandparents, names that have existed for hundreds of years.  A lot of those places and knowledge of those places and cultural values are being destroyed by the mine. It’s destroying our way of life,” says Gerold Blackrock, a resident of Black Mesa.

Peabody’s strip mines harm the health of communities wherever they operate, from Black Mesa to Appalachia. Appalachian miners’ hard-earned healthcare benefits and pensions are threatened by Peabody’s business practices. “Peabody and Arch dumped their obligations to retired miners into Patriot.  This was a calculated decision to cheat people out of their pensions,” said retired United Mine Workers of America miner Terry Steele.

“Enabled by the City of St. Louis, Peabody’s corporate executives hide out in their downtown office building, removed from the destruction they cause in communities across the nation,” said Dan Cohn, St. Louis resident.  In 2010, the Board of Aldermen, in conjunction with the St. Louis Development Corporation, gave Peabody a $61 million tax break, including $2 million that was designated for the St. Louis City Public Schools.

“Peabody’s everyday business contributed to this summer’s triple-digit heat waves and historic drought. St. Louis residents are here today to stand in solidarity with the other communities that Peabody impacts and demand that our city stops subsidizing the unjust relocation of indigenous people and climate change. We need our taxpayer development dollars to be invested in green jobs, not corporations who have no regard for human life,” Reggie Rounds, a MORE member, said.

MORE is currently collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would force the city of St. Louis to divest public money from fossil fuel corporations and switch over incentives to renewable energy and sustainability initiatives. The St. Louis Sustainable Energy ballot initiative has gained the support of numerous local social and environmental groups, small businesses, and 6th Ward Alderperson candidate Michelle Witthaus, who was present at today’s protest.

Today’s action is part of a growing movement for indigenous self-determination, and against exploitative business practices that destroy communities and land.

Please share this on Facebook and Twitter!

In January 2012 a Dine (Navajo) resister speaks about Peabody and the U.S. Government orchestrating the largest forced relocation since the Trail of Tears, as well as the destruction of sacred sites and traditional medicinal plants and herbs. Ultimately, he tells Peabody to leave his ancestral homeland in Big Mtn., Ariz.

In connecting colonial legacies, resource extraction disproportionately impacts indigenous communities, and the tragedy of strip mining in Appalachia started over 500 years ago with the first forced relocation of indigenous people in North America, such as the Osage and Shawnee. Two Big Mountain resisters, Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS), Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival (RAMPS) and Mountain Justice join MORE tomorrow to confront Peabody Energy at their home in St. Louis, Mo.

Please share this on Facebook and Twitter!

CREVE COEUR, MO–Seven protesters disrupted work at Arch Coal corporate headquarters today by locking themselves together inside Arch’s office building. At approximately 9 a.m., three protesters disguised as delivery personnel wheeled a 500-pound potted plant filled with concrete up to the third floor offices of Arch Coal and locked themselves to the plant. Another four protesters dressed in business attire joined them and locked themselves to each other, effectively blocking people from entering or leaving the office, while another group of protesters entered the ground floor lobby and released helium balloons floating a banner with a drawing of a dragline that read, “John Eaves, your coal company kills.”

The protesters in the lobby confronted office workers with protest songs and chants that emphasized a sustained resistance to Arch’s dirty energy and culpability in the climate crisis. Protesters hung another banner from a second floor banister that read, “Arch: Nemesis of the Land and People.” When asked to leave by police approximately 45 minutes later, the protesters downstairs complied but remained outside to sing and support protesters upstairs.

Arch Coal, a Missouri-based company, mines extensively in Appalachia.  Arch’s operations follow a history of flagrantly irresponsible mining practices that poison groundwater, destroy mountains, and uproot Appalachian culture. According to blockader Margaret Fetzer, “Arch [has] been sacrificing the health of communities in Appalachia and across the world for their quarterly profits. Capitalism does not answer to communities, it only consumes them.”

Arch undermines Appalachia’s legacy of resistance by strip mining the Blair Mountain Battlefield, the site of the second-largest armed uprising in U.S. history and a pivotal early union battleground.  Workers’ rights are routinely threatened by Arch’s insidious business practices. Currently, Arch plays a role in an ongoing case in which 22,000 unionized Patriot employees are being robbed of their healthcare and pensions.

“I have seen coal wreck everything around me! Arch [has] spent the last 125 years destroying [my] home,” blockader and native West Virginian Dustin Steele said. Steele swore to sustain resistance against Arch Coal, saying, “I will not allow their economy to kill any more of my friends. …I will be there fighting every inch of [every] permit.”

The police encountered difficulties removing protesters and set off a fire alarm from smoke created by their equipment. The last protester was removed at approximately 3:45 p.m., after over six hours of disrupting “business as usual” at the office.

All seven protesters have been arrested and charged with trespass and resisting arrest, and six protesters have been released on bail of $1,000 each. One protester has chosen to remain in jail to confront injustice in the legal system and continue resisting. Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), Radical Action for Mountain Peoples Survival (RAMPS), and Mountain Justice helped to organize today’s protest and welcome donations online to help cover legal costs.

Coal has always been in the forefront of my life. A UMWA pension is what kept food in my stomach and a roof over my head. The lure of the mines has attracted most of my family, a majority of the folks I went to school with, some of my greatest allies, and a group of pro coal protesters who serve as the little dutch boy with their finger in the damn.

I have seen coal wreck everything around me!  Mountains that once blanketed me in a sense of security, peace and the only place I call home. Arch along with other coal companies have spent the last 125 years destroying that home; with a heart of metal, and a mind of money they sink their teeth deep into the heart of Appalachia. They care for nothing, except draining the last profitable drop of blood out of West Virginia; they will not stop until every lump of coal is ripped out of the ground.

They ask us to compromise,  to believe that they hold the keys of progress and prosperity  in their hands. Arch tells us to think to think of the economy, to think about all the jobs they bring to my community. I will say once and for all TO HELL WITH THEIR ECONOMY! I will not allow their economy to kill any more of my friends.  I will not allow Arch another inch in this struggle; there will be a winner and loser in this fight for the future of Appalachia and it sure as hell won’t be the coal companies.

Today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of my life I will disrupt business as usual. From St. Louis to the strip site, from the city to the hollers, wherever they are I will be there fighting for every inch, fighting for every permit, and I won’t stop until Arch is nothing more then a collective bad memory. So as they drag me out of their office, all their doing is empowering our struggle.

We are strong and we are everywhere. If there are extractive industries trying to exploit the land and the people, whether it be in the Tar sands in Canada, or Peabody trying to destroy the brave folks fighting for the ancestral way of life on Big Mountain we will be there to tell them either you are going to stop destroying our communities or you will be fighting me and all of my other allies until you put us in the ground!

For the land and the people,

Dustin

Margaret Fetzer

I am here at Arch today because a few people here have been making decisions on behalf of all of us and they have been sacrificing the health of communities in Appalachia and across the world for their quarterly profits. Capitalism does not answer to communities, it only consumes them; we must resist this and reclaim our health and freedom. Accountability is only possible when the perpetrators of a crime are answerable to their actions. This is only possible when we come together and listen.

When we come together in community, we create a world in which history and culture are valued, and in which we listen and help those around us.  We listen to the people around us because there is so much that we don’t see. When we hear about the struggles of our community we are able to create imaginative and creative solutions to the problems we face together. That’s what being in a community is about: being able to hear and be heard. That’s the issue with big things, like corporations and the government. They’re too big; there is no act of listening.

This resistance is about communities and their ability to exist in a way that does not destroy themselves, and their ability to determine their own future. Communities in the coal fields are being destroyed. Not only is the land being ripped apart with explosives and poisoned, but Big Coal has created a devastating mono-economy, which creates divides between people and forces many to abandon their home places. Coal companies have stolen the sovereignty of the people from the land. What’s happening in West Virginia is happening everywhere; this is just an exemplary case. Communities are on the brink because of corporate power, and we have to stand with each other.

So my struggle is against a few people who are making bad choices on behalf of all of us and our communities. That’s what these CEOs are doing, and that’s what these corporations are doing. They are crushing communities, they are crushing individuals, and they are crushing the planet.

I am here to make them listen.

Anna-Louise Long

The first time that I learned about the reality of mountaintop removal I was in Alabama, being guided through the woods by a man across what had been his family’s land. He had lost it to the coal companies, but to him it was still his. He led us through the woods, and the closer we got to the mine the more barren, dead the forest became with the water levels rising where they shouldn’t be. As we looked out over the mine with the backdrop of massive machines bigger than houses, I remember him choking up, saying, “I don’t want this to be my family’s legacy.”

Continue reading →

Activists Occupy Arch Coal Corporate HQ

UPDATE: 3:27 pm CST: One activist is still locked down. The corrected bail amount is $1,000.

UPDATE 2:51 pm CST: Four of the activists have been cut out by the Fire Dept.  Three others remain attached to our potted plant.  Those that have been arrested were set a $10,000 bail.

UPDATE 11:03 am CST:  Supporter that sang this great song to Arch Coal have dispersed from the building. Fire Dept is on scene to attempt to remove activists locked down upstairs.

CREVE COEUR, MO —  Seven protesters affiliated with the RAMPS campaign (Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival), MORE (Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment) and Mountain Justice are locked down to a 500-pound small potted tree in Arch Coal’s third-floor headquarters while a larger group is in the lobby performing a song and dance.  Additionally, a helium balloon banner with the message “John Eaves Your Coal Company Kills”, directed at the Arch Coal CEO, was released in the Arch Coal headquarters.

“We’re here to halt Arch’s operations for as long as we can. These coal corporations do not answer to communities, they only consume them.  We’re here to resist their unchecked power,” explained Margaret Fetzer, one of the protestors.

Arch Coal, the second largest coal company in the U.S., operates strip mines in Appalachia and in other U.S. coal basins. Strip mining is an acutely destructive and toxic method of mining coal, and resource extraction disproportionately impacts marginalized communities.

“From the Battle of Blair Mountain to the current fight with the Patriot pensions, the people of central Appalachia have been fighting against the coal companies for the past 125 years. The struggle continues today as we take action to hold Arch Coal and other coal companies accountable for the damage that they do to people and communities in Appalachia and around the world. Coal mining disproportionately impacts indigenous peoples, and we stand in solidarity with disenfranchised people everywhere,”  Dustin Steele of Mingo County, W.Va. said.  Steele was one of the people locked in Arch’s office.

Continue reading →

On January 19-20, 2013, the MORE-RAMPS-BMIS Winter Action Camp will host a public, 2-day intensive direct action and community organizing training! This training is intended for individuals who are unable to participate in the three-week long camp. While we expect the majority of participants to come from the local St. Louis region, we also welcome out-of-town guests.

Building on the 2011 Midwest Rising Convergence and the 2012 99% Spring trainings, this training will prepare local St. Louis activists to engage in direct action against hometown foes like Monsanto, Peabody, Arch Coal and others, and to organize their communities.

APPLY TODAY TO BE PART OF THE 2-DAY INTENSIVE!

Meals will be provided, housing may be provided – suggested donation of $10-75, though no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

There will also be a 20-hour street medic training on January 11-13. For more information, email more-ramps@rampscampaign.org.

For questions, call 314-862-2249 or email more-ramps@rampscampaign.org.

MORE (Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment) is Missouri’s most effective grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people. We believe Missouri is uniquely positioned at an intersection of social, economic, and environmental injustice, and Missourians are therefore uniquely positioned to fight back. Since 2009, MORE has been building an organization that cuts across class, age, and race lines. Our members are committed to leading the fights for social, economic, and environmental justice in Missouri. We seek to win victories through creative direct action, negotiation, legislative advocacy, strategic partnerships with other progressive organizations, and the creation of viable alternatives to current systems.

RAMPS (Radical Action for Mountain People’s Survival) is a non-violent direct action campaign based in the southern coal fields of West Virginia. We are dedicated to ending all forms of strip mining in Appalachia and believe our greatest contribution to reaching this goal is to undertake locally supported direct action.

BMIS (Black Mesa Indigenous Support) is a grassroots, all-volunteer collective committed to supporting the Indigenous peoples of Black Mesa in their resistance to massive coal mining operations and to the forced relocation policies of the US government. We see ourselves as a part of a people powered uprising for a healthy planet liberated from fossil fuel extraction, exploitative economies, racism, and oppression for our generation and generations to come. BMIS stands with the Dineh elders and families of Black Mesa in their declaration that “Coal is the Liver of the Sacred Female Mountain.” and joins them in action to ensure that coal remains in the ground.

The Winter Action Camp is a three-week long, intensive community organizing and direct action training hosted by MORE, RAMPS, and BMIS.