After almost a week of preventing blasting on Coal River Mountain, tree-sitters with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice still continue to prevent Massey’s blasting near the Bee Tree site. Massey security blasts air horns 24 hours a day, and bright lights at night, with hopes of forcing the sitters down. Despite the audio and psychological abuse, Eric Blevins and Amber Nitchman refuse to descend. Two men have been arrested in separate attempts at a re-supply (which included ear protection). Furthermore, Massey security operatives have been overheard on two-way radios threatening to blast the tree-sitters with high pressure fire hoses, which would almost certainly be lethal to Eric and Amber.
On Jan. 26, anti-mountaintop removal activists met with WV Gov. Joe Manchin and asked that he do something about the noise abuse. Manchin’s public statement after the meeting was “We will not in any way, shape or form in this state of West Virginia tolerate any violence against anyone on any side. If you’re going to have the dialogue, have respect for each other.”
So far the abuses have not stopped.
Today a helicopter did a flyover of the tree sit, check out the pictures here.