Defenders in #Appalachia Against #MountainValleyPipeline Avoided #FelonyCharges

"Initially we were charged with #conspiracy. The real conspiracy is between the #prosecutors and the #judges, between the #cops and the #corporations."

By #AppalachiansAgainstPipelines, #CensoredNews, March 3, 2025

"Last Tuesday, 12 pipeline fighters had court in Giles County for charges resulting from three different actions against the Mountain Valley Pipeline in 2023 and 2024 in and around the #JeffersonNationalForest, including one site where #MVP was drilling through the mountain under the #AppalachianTrail.

"Eleven of the defendants accepted non-cooperating plea deals -- all of them were facing absurd felony charges, including
felony abduction and felony 'unauthorized use of a vehicle.' In the end, they plead to misdemeanor charges and there were NO felony convictions. They were sentenced to community service, probation, and to pay restitution. The court room was PACKED all day long with supporters!"

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/03/defenders-in-appalachia-against.html
#ReaderSupportedNews #LandDefenders #WaterProtectors #MountainProtectors #CriminalizingDissent #SilencingDissent #JeffersonNationalForest #AppalachianTrail #CorporateColonialism #AppalachiansAgainstPipelines #SLAPPs #WaterIsLife #NoPipelines #MountainValleyPipelineLLC #Virginia #WestVirginia #NorthCarolina #ACAB #CorporateGreed #ComplicitGovernment

"There are many myths and misconceptions about the Appalachian people, born of ignorance, Hollywood sensibilities, and sensationalism. The history of our people — proud, though often tragic — is obscured both by the passage of time and the cruel efforts of men.

This absence of history often leaves a void too quickly filled with misinformation, and that misinformation — at least to the average Appalachian — feels an awful lot like justification for neglect. Neglect from the barons of modern industry, who see in the Appalachian people a labor force unfit for work. Neglect from the parties of our country, who either choose to ignore us or exploit us as the situation calls for. Neglect from the very nation to which we belong.

We are more than aware of the stereotypes..."

Tapestry In The Mountains: Diversity, Hardships, and Heroes
https://medium.com/@kidether/tapestry-in-the-mountains-diversity-hardships-and-heroes-183b1e722921

Some pointers from "The Eye of Every Storm - #Anarchist Response to Hurricane Helene"

#CrimethInc, 2024-11-13

"At the end of September 2024, western North Carolina and the surrounding states experienced 30 inches of rainfall over two days when an unnamed storm collided with Hurricane Helene over the mountains of Southern Appalachia. The resulting catastrophe laid waste to the entire region. At a time when #misinformation, rising #authoritarianism, and disasters exacerbated by industrially-produced climate change are creating a feedback loop of escalating crisis, it’s crucial to understand #DisasterResponse as an integral part of community defense and strategize about how this can play a part in movements for liberation. In the following reflection, a local anarchist involved in longstanding disaster response efforts in #Appalachia recounts the lessons that they have learned over the past six weeks and offers advice about how to prepare for the disasters to come.

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that Hurricane Helene poured 40 trillion gallons of water on the region. This caused an estimated 1800 landslides; it damaged over 160 municipal water and sewer systems, at least 6000 miles of roads, more than 1000 bridges and culverts, and an estimated 126,000 homes. There have been over 230 confirmed deaths across six states with many still missing.

"The entire region was completely cut off from the outside world for a day or more, with all major roads shut down by landslides, collapsed bridges, and downed trees. Water, power, internet and cell service all went down within hours of the hurricane arriving, and remained down for days or, in some areas, weeks. There are still communities that will likely not have electricity for another three months because the roads that the power company would use no longer exist. Six weeks into this disaster, there are still tens of thousands of people who lack access to drinkable water. Not only have thousands of homes been wiped off the map—in many cases, the land they rested on no longer exists. Massive landslides have scoured canyons 30 feet deep, exposing bedrock that has not seen the light of day for tens of thousands of years. The torrential floods moved so much earth and caused so many rivers to change course that scientists have designated the hurricane a 'geological event.'

"In response, a beautiful web of mutual aid networks has emerged, saving countless lives by bringing in #EssentialSupplies, providing #MedicalCare, setting up neighborhood #WaterDistribution centers, #SolarChargingStations, #SatelliteInternetHubs, free #kitchens, free #childcare, and more. Name a need and there are folks out here who have self-organized to meet it. We share these lessons we have learned in hopes of helping others to prepare for similar situations, aiming to increase our capacity to build autonomous infrastructure for the long haul.

Start Preparing Now

"There is no time like the present to get organized.

"Our mutual aid group has been around for almost eight years. Within 72 hours of the floodwaters receding, we had a functioning mutual aid hub and were mobilizing folks to check on missing people and #ChainsawCrews to cut people out of their homes and open up roads. We were only able to do these things because we had already put in the work in our community to build the trust and relationships that are so vital in times of crisis.

"While we are a small group, we have an extensive network of friends and allies that has grown throughout years of smaller-scale mutual aid and organizing efforts. The best way to prepare for a disaster is not to stockpile supplies, but to build trust in your community and nurture a healthy web of relationships. The best way to accomplish this is to start doing mutual aid projects in your community before an acute crisis arises. This will give you practice operating as a group and organizing logistics, and it will also connect you with others you wouldn’t otherwise meet and show them that they can count on you. Because of the work we had already put in, when the crisis hit, people turned to us and spread the word that we are a good group to funnel supplies and money through. You can only build that kind of reputation by putting in the work now.

Communications

"One of the biggest initial challenges we faced was that most means of communication went offline for between 24 hours and several weeks, depending on where you lived. That includes #landlines, #CellPhones, and internet. We can’t stress enough the importance of having multiple back-up options in place to be ready for a situation like this. First of all, make sure you have a place and time established in advance where folks know they can find each other in the event of a disaster. This is probably a good idea even if communications don’t go offline—nothing beats face-to-face communication.

"Satellite internet was invaluable during the first couple of weeks. For some particularly hard-hit communities, it remains the only means of communication six weeks into this disaster. Unfortunately, #Starlink, which is owned by the white supremacist Elon Musk, has proven to be the most useful and the easiest to set up in a disaster scenario. We know from past experience that he is eager to suppress social movements that use his companies’ services. There are other companies that provide satellite internet, but it tends to be slower, with significant data limits. These are generally not mobile systems and would be challenging to set up in the middle of a disaster.

"Don’t forget that you will need a source of electricity such as a generator or solar power to make satellite internet work.

"Radios, especially ham radios, are another important means of communication that should be arranged in advance with people who already know how to use them. Our mountainous terrain limits the distance that radios can broadcast, but it would still have been helpful if we had possessed ham radios.

Getting Organized

"Grassroots disaster relief is no longer the exclusive province of church groups and small bands of autonomous mutual aid groups. The notion has gone mainstream since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many people discovered that their neighbors were all they had to count on. At this point, well-organized and well-resourced groups of every stripe are prepared to mobilize quickly—from reactionary right-leaning groups like the Cajun Navy and to networks of volunteer helicopter pilots, not to mention radical groups like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief. Beyond these specific groups, more people understand how to self-organize now. Within three to five days of the flood waters receding, you couldn’t drive more than ten minutes without running into a #DIY #ReliefHub or water station in someone’s front yard, church, or gas station parking lot. It would not be an overstatement to say that within a week, western North Carolina had the highest concentration of four-wheelers, all-terrain vehicles, and dirt bikes in the world, as people poured in from all over the South and beyond to help with search and rescue and to get supplies out to cut-off communities.

"Most of these hubs were truly #grassroots, with no formal organization behind them. This is an overwhelmingly positive development, but it does not come without challenges. The chief problems were redundancy of effort and lack of coordination between relief hubs, road clearing crews, and people doing #SupplyRuns, search and rescue, and wellness checks. The sooner you can develop relationships and good communication systems with other hubs, the better, so you won’t have to be constantly reinventing the wheel.

"Creating an intake system for incoming volunteers and arranging for people to coordinate them is a huge piece of the puzzle. We had to turn away many offers of help in the first few weeks because we didn’t have a good system in place for fielding newcomers, especially those from out of town, nor could we guarantee that we could plug them into a project on any given day if they just showed up, despite the fact that there was always a mountain of work to do. Connecting volunteers to communities and individual homes that need medical care, mucking, gutting, and repairs requires an enormous amount of legwork on your part, not to mention building trust between you and the residents. You would do well to have someone in your group that has a deep love of spreadsheets."

Full article:
https://crimethinc.com/2024/11/13/after-the-hurricane-anarchist-disaster-response-in-appalachia
#MutualAid #ClimateChange #Preparedness #BuildingCommunity #CommunityPreparedness #CommunityDefense #Polycrisis #HamRadios

#Rewilding #US #Appalachia

"Bison, not prison: Activists buy a prison site to rewild the land"
by Katie Myers for Grist [Feb 3, 2025] [Audio available]

https://grist.org/justice/bison-not-prison-activists-buy-a-prison-site-to-rewild-the-land/

Quotes:
"A coal mine was the first to wreck the land. Now activists want to keep another extractive industry from taking root there: prisons."

"The mine shut down years ago, but the site, near the town of Roxana, still bears the scars of extraction. DeVaughan, an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation, joined some two dozen people on January 22 to celebrate the Appalachian Rekindling Project buying 63 acres within the prison’s footprint."

"The Appalachian Rekindling Project, which she [DeVaughan JdeB] helped found last year, wants to rewild the site with bison and native flora and fauna, open it to intertribal gatherings, and, it hopes, stop the prison."

"...a coalition of local nonprofits, including Build Community Not Prisons and the Institute to End Mass Incarceration, to raise $160,000 to buy the plot from a family who owned the land generationally."

"Some in Letcher County, which saw 5.2 percent of its population leave between 2020 and 2023 and grapples with a 24 percent poverty rate, believe the prison will replace jobs and tax revenue lost with the decline of coal. Federal prison construction has boomed in central Appalachia as mining has faltered, with 8 of the 16 penitentiaries built there, often atop mines, located in Kentucky alone."

“Those are all expressions of the economic crisis that has occurred due to the collapse of the coal industry, and for which the prisons and the jails are proposed,” said Judah Schept, a professor of justice studies at Eastern Kentucky University."

"Opponents argue that a prison will bring more environmental problems than jobs. Letcher County was 1 of 13 counties ravaged by catastrophic flooding in 2022, a situation exacerbated by damage strip mining caused to local watersheds.../\..The Bureau of Prisons estimates it will damage 6,290 feet of streams and about 2 acres of wetlands. (The agency has promised to compensate the state.)"

"DeVaughan said the purchase also is a step toward rectifying the dispossession that began with the forced removal and genocide of Indigenous peoples. The Cherokee, Shawnee, and Yuchi made their homes in the area before, during, and after colonization, and their thriving nations raised crops, ran businesses, and hunted bison that once roamed Appalachia."

"Changing that dynamic is a priority for the Appalachian Rekindling Project, which hoped to buy more land to protect it from extractive industries and return its stewardship to Indigenous and local communities. DeVaughn said Indigenous peoples throughout the region will be welcome to use the land as a gathering place."

"[But] many of those on hand that Wednesday to celebrate the sale were local residents like Artie Ann Bates, who grew up in Letcher County and saw waves of strip mining damage her family’s land. “It’s just really hard seeing a place you love be destroyed,” she said. The purchase is a “sign of progress,” she added, bundled up at the foot of the mine site alongside her neighbors."

#TakeCareForLife #TakeCareForEarth
#StopBurningThings #StopEcoside
#ClimateBreakDown #StopRapingNature

Notorious US #ChemicalPlant polluting water with toxic #PFAS, lawsuit claims

Complaint says #Chemours factory dramatized in Hollywood movie #DarkWaters continues to pollute #WestVirginia river

by Tom Perkins, January 27, 2025

"The chemical giant Chemours’s notorious West Virginia PFAS plant is regularly polluting nearby water with high levels of toxic 'forever chemicals', a new lawsuit alleges.

"It represents the latest salvo in a decades-old fight over pollution from the plant, called Washington Works, which continues despite public health advocates winning significant legal battles.

The new federal complaint claims #WashingtonWorks has been spitting out levels of PFAS waste significantly higher than what a discharge permit has allowed since 2023, which is contaminating the #OhioRiver in #ParkersburgWestVirginia, a town of about 50,000 people in #Appalachia.

"The factory was the focal point of a Hollywood movie, Dark Waters. It dramatized the story of how the pollution widely sickened Parkersburg residents, and the David v Goliath legal saga in which a group of residents and attorneys took on Chemours, then part of DuPont.
The findings ‘highlight the importance of careful scrutiny of novel chemicals’, said Irene Jacz, a study co-author and Iowa State economist.

"An epidemiological study stemming from the case blew the lid off of the health risks of PFAS, and ultimately cost #DuPont about $700m.

"Though the landmark case still reverberates across the regulatory landscape, the suit started almost 25 years ago, concluded in 2016, and Chemours’s pollution continues. The new lawsuit is part of other legal actions related to the facility that have filled the gap left by weak regulatory action, local advocates say. The never-ending struggle 'wears you out', added Joe Kiger, a Parkersburg resident who was one of the original litigants in 2001.

"'We have put up with this for 24 years, and [Chemours] is still polluting, they’re still putting this stuff in the water,' Kiger said.

"The new lawsuit, filed by the #WestVirginiaRiversCoalition, alleges 'numerous violations' since the level of PFAS the company is permitted to discharge per a consent order was lowered in early 2023. Among the contaminants are #PFOA, a PFAS chemical to which virtually no level of exposure in drinking water is safe, the #EnvironmentalProtectionAgency (#EPA) has found. It also includes #GenX, a compound for which the EPA has similarly found very low exposure levels can cause health problems.

"The EPA ordered Chemours to take corrective action, but the company has done nothing in response, and the agency has not taken further action, the suit states. The complaint does not mention drinking water, which is largely filtered. But the suit alleges the ongoing pollution prevents residents from using the river for recreation.

"In a statement, Chemours said the 'concerns are being addressed' through the consent order. It also noted it was renewing discharge permits with the state, and was working with regulators 'to navigate both the consent order and the permit renewal process'.

"'Chemours recognizes the Coalition as a community stakeholder and invites the Coalition to engage directly with the Washington Works team,' a spokesperson wrote.

"The EPA and West Virginia Rivers Coalition declined to comment because litigation is ongoing.

"Kiger and others who have taken on Chemours and DuPont railed against the company, accusing it of 'greed' and putting profits above residents’ health. Some in Parkersburg refer to the waste as the 'Devil's Piss'.

"'They do what they can to make money,' said Harry Deitzler, a West Virginia attorney who helped lead past lawsuits.

"'The officers in the corporation sometimes don’t care about what’s right and wrong – they need to make money for shareholders and the lawsuits make everyone play by the same rules.'

"Still, most residents are not aware of the ongoing pollution, those who spoke with the Guardian say. Chemours is a large employer that still wields power locally, and spends heavily on charitable giving. Many remain supportive of the company, regardless of the pollution, Kiger said.

"'That’s the kind of stuff you’re up against,' he added. 'People put a blind trust in them. It could be snowing out and Chemours would tell everyone it’s 80F [27C] and sunny, and everyone will grab their tan lotion.'

"The saga began in the late 1990s when the plant’s pollution was suspected of sickening nearby livestock, and an investigation by attorneys revealed the alarming levels at which PFAS was being discharged into the water and environment.

"A class action lawsuit yielded about $70m in damages for area residents in 2004, but the litigation did not prove DuPont’s PFAS pollution was behind a rash of #cancer, #KidneyDisease, stubbornly high cholesterol and other widespread health problems in the region.

"Instead of dividing the settlement up among tens of thousands of residents, which would have only provided each with several hundred dollars, the money went toward developing an epidemiological study with independent scientists to verify that widespread local health issues were caused by DuPont’s pollution.

"The move was a gamble that ultimately paid off – the study of about 70,000 people showed by 2012 that PFOA probably caused some forms of cancer, #ThyroidDisease, persistently #HighCholesterol, pregnancy-induced #hypertension and #autoimmune problems.

"Subsequent studies have shown links between the chemical and a host of other serious health problems – #BirthDefects, #neurotoxicity, kidney disease and #LiverDisease – that residents in the area suffered.

"DuPont and Chemours in 2017 settled for $671m in costs for about 3,500 injury suits, and have paid more to install water-filtration systems throughout the region. Separately, Chemours in 2023 settled with the state of #Ohio for $110m for pollution largely from Washington Works.

"The EPA and state regulatory agencies have at times been staffed with former DuPont managers or industry allies, and litigation has been the only way to get any meaningful movement, said Rob Bilott, the attorney who led the original class-action suit.

'"It’s infuriating,' Bilott said. 'It took decades of making DuPont documents and internal data public, and getting the story out through movies, news articles, books and public engagement, and that’s what finally pushed the needle here. This is the impact of citizens forcing it through decades of litigation.'

"The latest lawsuit is a citizen’s suit under the #CleanWaterAct. Such suits give citizens the power to ask a judge to enforce federal law when a polluter is violating it and regulators fail to act.

"The lawsuit asks a judge to order the company to pay $66,000 for each day it has been in violation, which is stipulated in the permit. That would total around $50m, but the main goal is to stop the pollution.

"The EPA has acknowledged Chemours is violating the law, but has 'taken no further enforcement action regarding Chemours’s violations as of the date of this complaint', the suit reads."

Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/27/chemours-pfas-pollution-lawsuit

Archived:
https://archive.ph/p3wA6
#Environment #PFASPollution #PollutionRunoff #WaterIsLife #DevilsPiss

Red Bandana Radio #9 - Tear the Fascists Down (2:03:44)

"Fascism is a type of far-right ultra-nationalism, but other tendencies within the far-right are often included when using the term. We’re gonna listen to antifascist voices across history from partisan songs against fascism during the initial waves up to current global fascist dangers.

Antifascism is more than just ‘antifa’, which is better understood as a movement and particular form of organizing against fascism that is largely underground and uses tactics like black bloc.

Antifascists groups can be either public-facing or clandestine. They’re composed of folks of various identities; by nature, it has to be a mass effort. This is also true of fascism so that’s why we all gotta play our part in actively fightin’ it.

While I advocate for the Hitchcock cure for fascists - it’s best to support a diversity of tactics - provided they don’t platform the far-right or rely on state forces for opposing them."

https://www.mixcloud.com/RedBandanaRadio/red-bandana-radio-9-tear-the-fascists-down/

Help needed for a #trans woman of color to escape abuse and find safe #housing

@mutualaid

https://chuffed.org/project/safe-housing-for-maria