Call Gov. Tomblin: Free Roselle, Test MTR Dust

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Mike waits at the WV governor’s door. Photo courtesy of Mike Cherin

Dec. 4 Update: Mining activist out of jail after five days

Climate Ground Zero Campaign Director Mike Roselle is in jail in West Virginia. He gathered a bucket-full of dust from a mountaintop removal coal mining site (dust that studies have shown to be toxic) and delivered it to the door of WV Governor Tomblin’ s mansion on Thanksgiving Day.

Mike wanted the governor to order the WV Department of Environmental Protection to analyze the dust. The people living – and becoming sick and dying – below mountaintop removal sites deserve to know what is raining down upon them as coal companies blow up the mountains to expose and “harvest” the coal seams.

Blasts are not the only thiing that spew silica-laden dust from ground-up mountains out over communities. Massive machines at MTR sites also stir up dust. Photo by Vivian Stockman

Author Jeff Biggers explains what’s happening in this Huffington Post article.

OVEC organizer Maria Gunnoe, who has been working with Climate Ground Zero and the ACHE campaign on exposing toxic MTR and a bill that would place a moratorium on new mountaintop removal mining until studies find that it is not harming health, urges everyone to call WV Governor Manchin. Maria says, “Ask him why is it that he doesn’t want to simply analyze this dust. Why put a man in jail because he delivered the toxic dust and asked to have it analyzed?”

See a blast set off above Maria’s home here.