Mountain Justice is a grassroots movement established in 2005 to raise worldwide awareness of mountaintop removal mining and its effects on the environment and peoples of Appalachia.
It seeks justice because the mountaintop removal (MTR) it opposes is a form of coal mining known as mountaintop removal mining which produces coal sludge toxic waste which is stored in a dam on the mountain and leaches into the groundwater, which poisons the environment, which defaces the top of the mountain, and which is not stopped due to political corruption.
[citation needed] We work together to create diverse and sustainable economies in Appalachian regions traditionally dominated by the coal industry by supporting businesses, jobs and ways of living that are not environmentally or culturally destructive and are nourishing to the social and biological fabric of healthy communities.
[citation needed] On June 7, 2005, approximately 45 Mountain Justice activists, some in animal costumes, surprised the first-ever shareholders meeting of Knoxville-based National Coal Corporation with a marching band, chants, drumming and noise makers.
The sheriff and National Coal Corporation responded by assaulting protesters with pain compliance, choke holds and arrested three on bogus felony charges.
In San Francisco, RAN activists attached caution tape - reading "Global Warming Crime Scene" - to dozens of Bank of America and Citibank ATMs, and held "cough-ins" in several branches.
[10] On March 28, 2008, activists participating in Mountain Justice Spring Break[usurped] occupied the lobby of AMP-Ohio's headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, and demanded a meeting with AMP's CEO Marc Gerken.
After 30 minutes, Gerken met with the protestors, and agreed to their demands: to schedule a meeting of the board of trustees at which community members could present their concerns with AMP-Ohio's proposed coal-fired power plant in Meigs County, Ohio.
and Mountain Justice blockaded the entrance to Dominion Resources' corporate headquarters to protest the company's plan for the new coal-fired Wise County Plant in Southwest Virginia.
Four protesters formed a human chain with their hands encased in containers of hardened cement and a fifth dangled by a climber's harness from the Lee Bridge footbridge.
[14] In an act of civil disobedience, four citizen activists walked across a line marked with police tape designating National Coal Corporation's property.
In addition to those locked to the construction site, over 25 protesters convened in front of the plant singing and holding a 10'x30' banner, which said "we demand a clean energy future."
[16] Local residents joined dozens of activists from across the country in a demonstration at the Tennessee Valley Authority's headquarters, which resulted in the arrest of 14 individuals, after participating in a "die in" in front of the building.
[citation needed] In the morning, two people donning hazmat suits and respirators were arrested after taking boating into the Brushy Fork Impoundment in the Coal River Valley.
[18] Later, over seventy-five residents of Coal River Valley along with members of Mountain Justice and Climate Ground Zero picketed the entrance to Massey Energy's Marfork Complex mining site.
Mountain Justice and residents of Coal River Valley again joined forces for a rally at Marsh Fork Elementary School, where the group delivered a list of demands to Massey Energy.
[19] Among those arrested were 94-year-old former U.S. Congressperson Ken Hechler, NASA scientist James E. Hansen, actress Daryl Hannah, and West Virginia residents.
[20] Around the Tennessee Valley Authority Headquarters and the John J. Duncan Federal Building, home of the Office of Surface Mining environmental regulator.
[20] Rallies were held against the Environmental Protection Agency's role in mountaintop removal at the regional EPA offices in Atlanta, New York, Boston, Dallas, Kansas City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.[21] Some of the groups involved were Mountain Justice, Mountain Defense, Student Environmental Action Coalition, and Energy Justice Network.
[22] Four Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice activists chained themselves to each other and blocked a road on a mountaintop removal mine in Kanawha County, WV.
"[24] Despite opposition from some faculty, basketball players and fans, environmentalists, and general student population, the Board of Trustees approved the dorm name in a 16–3 vote at their annual meeting in October 2009.
David Aaron Smith, 23 Amber Nitchman, 19 and Eric Blevins, 28 were on platforms approximately 60 feet up in direct protest of mountaintop removal mining and blasting near the Brushy Fork Coal Impoundment.
A federal judge granted a permanent injunction to Marfork Coal Co. Inc., a subsidiary of Massey Energy, ordering the defendants to keep off all company property.