Twelve of the 16 protesters arrested last weekend at the Grant Town Power Plant in northern Marion County settled their cases in court hearings Friday, according to a press release from West Virginia Rising, the activist group that organized the gathering.
All 16 were arrested this past Saturday for trespassing after forming a human chain with the aid of padlocks and PVC pipe.
Kidus Girma, a northern Virginia college student and climate activist who volunteered with the Mountain State group and penned the release, said Friday afternoon he didn’t know any other details from the legal doings.
Marion County Sheriff Jim Riffle was also unavailable for comment.
Some 200 people from across West Virginia and surrounding states came out to protest both the plant and its affiliation with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., whose energy company supplies “gob” coal to the operation.
“Gob,” which stands for, “garbage of bituminous,” is a low-grade byproduct that doesn’t burn cleanly and is known to cause pollution.
The senator’s Enersystems company usually takes in half a million dollars a year from the partnership with the plant. His son, Joseph Manchin IV, runs the Fairmont company.
Protestors chided Manchin, the elected official, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, saying he’s steering energy policy in Washington, D.C. — while lining his pockets in West Virginia.
“I grew up with mines all around me, but it’s not like it was,” said Michael Whitten, a Boone County native and former coal miner who was among the protesters Saturday.
“We’re gonna have to start doing things differently,” continued Whitten, whose coal miner father died from black lung complications at the age of 67.
“We could be a leader in alternative energy if our lawmakers would let us.”
It’s a matter of both the environment and ethics, Whitten said, and J. Davitt McAteer agreed.
McAteer is a Fairmont native who served in the Clinton White House as assistant secretary for the Mine Safety and Health Administration. His father came from Ireland to work in the mines.
He was a WVU law student in 1968, the year of the Farmington No. 9 mine disaster. A total of 78 men died, and some were entombed in the mine because it was too dangerous to recover their bodies.
His whitepaper chronicling the conditions that led to the explosion was a catalyst to the nation’s first comprehensive mine safety act that following year.
McAteer said Manchin’s voting record isn’t helping — “He appears to be contributing mightily to the problem while reaping untold benefits,” he said.
Girma said Friday he didn’t know if any other protests were being planned by West Virginia Rising.
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