State Journal: When Bulldozers Burn, Baby

southeast us | environment | news report Monday September 17, 2007 18:17 by anonymous

When Bulldozers Burn, Baby
Posted Thursday, September 13, 2007 ; 06:00 AM

Law enforcement and coal operators need to be aware that as hard-core environmentalists are increasingly drawn here by the national attention heaped on Hosta and her cohorts, there will likely be those who take an even harder line.

Story by Chris Stirewalt

Last week, somebody torched $5 million worth of equipment at a strip mine in Wyoming County.

Burning things for fun and profit is hardly unheard of in southern West Virginia. But the scope and effectiveness of this arson and the lack of an obvious beneficiary makes one wonder who would do such a thing.

The story didn't get much play, but I'm having a hard time shaking the notion that there was something terribly unusual about the crime.

The three end-loaders were sitting idle at a remote surface mine owned by Bluestone Coal's Dynamic Energy late Sept. 3, when somebody lit them up in spectacular fashion. Everything was declared a total loss, and the fire instantly was ruled an arson.

Somebody knew where to find the equipment, brought the tools to do the job and had the know-how to do it. Getting something made of steel that's 30 feet long and weighs 30,000 pounds to burn beyond repair takes more than a gallon of gas and a box of matches.

Now when something gets burned at a coal mine -- especially at a non-union surface mine in southern West Virginia -- my first thoughts drift back to the goon squads and skull busters of past labor disputes.

But it's been some 17 years since we saw much in the way of large-scale labor strife and vandalism in the coalfields. And trend away from mayhem and destruction has been pretty consistent.

The leadership of the UMWA effectively has turned that organization into sort of a miner's version of the VFW -- old timers who talk about the glory days and beef about their pensions.

They are not likely suspects for large-scale terrorism.

Ah, there's the word: terrorism.

It was just last summer that eco-nuts from around the nation descended on our state for something called "Mountain Summer Justice," which was when hippies came here to stop strip mining or something.

Maybe somebody's old Volvo broke down or there was word of a Phish reunion, but not much ever materialized.

There was one pretty lame protest at the governor's office that did little more than annoy some state troopers and thrill Public Broadcasting listeners. Other than that, there was a half-hearted march at a Massey Energy mine (which makes you wonder why the governor didn't invite them in for hot chai and organic soy snaps) and nothing more.

The kind of attacks that have been heaped on the logging and construction industries for 20 years didn't materialize.

The folks from groups like Earth First! and others that teeter between activism and eco-terrorism haven't been as busy here as they have been out west, but that may be changing.

Coal River Mountain Watch has become the center of the fight against surface mining. Our local group has never shown violent tendencies, but in court, in the streets and in the sympathetic national media, they do battle with mountaintop removal. Folks from both coasts eat up their message when it is repeated in Vanity Fair, The New York Times or on "60 Minutes."

And since finding genuine locals who don't understand the realities of surface mining is pretty hard, Coal River Mountain Watch provides a ready-made source for heartbreaking, misleading quotes about mountaintop removal for reporters who would get tossed out of a local bar in about 10 seconds.

The publicity has paid off in several ways, including additional support from the bigger voices in radical environmentalism.

Hillary Hosta joined the Coal River Mountain Watch as a board member a couple of years back. Hosta is a veteran of the Earth First! movement and boasts a resume that includes an arrest with Woody Harrelson for hanging a banner from the Golden Gate Bridge and as an instructor on climbing tall buildings and trees at Earth First! summer camp. She's been a foot soldier in the war against corporate America and "wimpy" environmentalism for 15 years.

In a 1996 article in Outside magazine, Hosta said she understood the appeal of destroying private property in the name of Mother Earth but said that what she was really into was peaceful demonstration: mischief with personal accountability.

"When you're a kid, you don't have to take responsibility for your actions," she says of "fun and run" monkeywrenching in which the vandals vanish afterward. "A lot of those dozers are owned by a local logger, and he's not the problem but part of the solution, which is sustainable logging. I'd rather see one person with a hand up in front of a logging truck than a big, impersonal explosion. What's sexy is integrity."

Her quotes reveal the problem with her wing of the movement -- not everybody agrees that "big, impersonal explosions" -- like the one that crisped the end-loaders in Wyoming County last week -- aren't sexy.

And as the owners of burned subdivisions, logging trucks and sport utility vehicles in California and Oregon can attest, there are some folks who seem to have a fetish for such big bangs.

Law enforcement and coal operators need to be aware that as hard-core environmentalists are increasingly drawn here by the national attention heaped on Hosta and her cohorts, there will likely be those who take an even harder line.

Chris Stirewalt is political editor for The State Journal. He can be reached at (304) 720-6553 or by e-mail at cstirewalt@statejournal.com.

Copyright 2007 West Virginia Media. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.