A victory in the fight to preserve an historic union (UMW) site, Blair Mountain!

[theHandpuppet]

The Battle of Blair Mountain should be in every history book in every school in this nation. The coal companies were going to erase this historic site via mountaintop removal mining.

http://appvoices.org/2014/05/12/a-victory-in-the-battle-to-protect-blair-mountain/?
A Victory in the Battle to Protect Blair Mountain
Posted by Brian Sewell | May 12, 2014 at 4:18 pm

An order from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection will put a section of a mountaintop removal permit near historic Blair Mountain off limits to mining until at least 2018 when the permit comes up for renewal.

The DEP order prohibits Aracoma Coal, a subsidiary of Alpha Natural Resources, from mining within 1,000 feet of the mountain’s historic battlefield. The 1,600-acre battlefield was briefly added to the National Register of Historic Places, but was delisted after a coal industry-led campaign falsified public opposition to the historic designation.

The order came after the agency discovered its permit for the Camp Branch mine, which encompasses the southern portion of the battlefield, did not include a 1,000-foot buffer that was included in a Clean Water Act permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers...

....The news was shared by Friends of Blair Mountain, a group dedicated to the preservation of the Blair Mountain Battlefield. In 1921, more than 10,000 miners attempting to unionize the southern West Virginia coalfields revolted against armed coal company guards in Logan County. The battle remains one of the largest civil uprisings in American history.... MORE

[theHandpuppet]

1. Another article, this one with details of the struggle to save Blair

http://ilovemountains.org/news/4798

Victory at Blair Mountain!
Tuesday, May 6th, 2014
From the Friends of Blair Mountain

WVDEP has issued an order to Aracoma Coal that will prohibit any surface mining within 1,000 ft. of the Blair Battlefield until 2018 when the permit comes up for renewal.

More importantly, OSMRE, a federal agency, has confirmed and established the legal steps to take so that Governor Tomblin can issue an executive order giving WVDEP the power to enforce section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act on a 1,000 ft. boundary around the entire Blair Battlefield.

The 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain was fought along a number of fronts, the Battle for Blair Mountain has been no different. A pivotal front in the ongoing Battle for Blair Mountain is the Camp Branch Permit. Encompassing part of the southern area of the battlefield, the land on Camp Branch was where Sheriff Don Chafin kept his supply lines running and where defensive positions were stationed on the ridgeline at Blair. In the Battle for Blair Mountain, the Camp Branch Permit has been the most heated front. Just a few months after the 2011 protest march to save Blair Mountain there were rumors of activity around Camp Branch. A few months later, our board members withstood violent threats at the Camp Branch Permit hearing from hundreds of miners who had been told the approval of the permit would create coal jobs. On September 10, 2013, FOBM board members were physically threatened and intimidated with armed force when our organization attempted to conduct a citizen’s site inspection accompanied by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Friends of Blair Mountain requested a site inspection because our organization found evidence that portions of the Blair Battlefield were being illegally destroyed on the Camp Branch Permit. Our first site inspection was forced to an early close and we were unable to document our findings. We appealed to the West Virginia Surface Mine Board and, on December 9, 2013 won a hearing which granted us the right to conduct a second site visit and film it. On March 11, 2014 we conducted this site visit and filmed areas where significant areas of the battlefield on the Camp Branch Permit were destroyed through logging and construction methods.... MORE