On April 9, a group called West Virginia Rising organized a blockade of a power plant that buys coal waste supplied by a business owned by Sen. Joe Manchin and his family, from which he earns $500,000 a year. At the same time, Manchin has been blocking any congressional action on the climate crisis, and has been calling for more fossil fuel development from his powerful perch as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Scores of activists gathered outside the plant gates near the small town of Grant, while a dozen protesters locked down at the gates were almost immediately arrested and charged with trespassing. The organizers were joined by members of the Poor People’s Campaign and its co-chairs, Rev. William Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharis. The campaign has targeted Manchin for many of his positions that hurt his own constituents in West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the country.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Donna Shaunesey, one of the climate activists arrested at the “Coal Baron Blockade.” Here, she talks about her reasons for risking arrest and what she hopes the protest action will accomplish.
DONNA SHAUNESEY: I’m in Charlottesvile, Virginia, so we’re downwind from the Grant Town plant in West Virginia. I know it’s burning really bad stuff – GOB (garbage of bituminous) – and it’s heading our way, plus we all breathe the same air, so that’s something that’s really important to me, to save the planet as much as we can, and heaven knows Joe Manchin has done more than his fair share to undercut the whole climate curing kinds of things.
MELINDA TUHUS: Was it operating while you were there? Was it belching smoke, or what was that like?
DONNA SHAUNESEY: Yes, definitely was, and also a lot of alarm sounds going off. At first we thought it was just for us, but apparently that’s just going on all the time – really loud blasting noises – and so that’s a problem for the neighbors of course, too.
MELINDA TUHUS: Do you know what that was about? Coal plants don’t usually do that.
DONNA SHAUNESEY: Well, it’s not actually a coal plant. It’s a plant that’s burning leftover coal residue and creating electricity. So, yeah, I don’t know.
MELINDA TUHUS: Can you explain what GOB is? You said a little bit about it, but I understand that G-O-B actually stands for something.
DONNA SHAUNESEY: Yeah, garbage of bituminous. So, it’s whatever’s left over from burning bituminous coal. It has a little energy value, but it’s a really expensive fuel, and it doesn’t burn cleanly at all. Coal is dirty, this stuff is even dirtier from what I understand.
MELINDA TUHUS: I was reading the article in the local paper – the Charleston, West Virginia, Gazette. There’s actually a little thing added at the top that says “This has been updated to show it’s not illegal for any member of Congress to profit from their investments…”
DONNA SHAUNESEY: It’s legal, there’s no question that it’s legal, it’s just morally reprehensible. And not only that, but he’s asking to have the rates increased so he can charge more to his constituents, and he’s poisoning their air, so it’s a lose-lose for the people of West Virginia and a win for Joe Manchin.
MELINDA TUHUS: What did you hope to accomplish by getting arrested there?
DONNA SHAUNESEY: Mostly to call attention to what was going on and hopefully slow things down enough that we could get more media attention. There wasn’t really any point in blocking the entrance – although we did that – because only 10 people work there. We didn’t see anybody try to go in and out.
I know that those of us who were locked down to each other planned to stay there for a really long time. We had lots of layers on, so we were disappointed not to be there, and we had all our plans intact, but they were completely wiped out. Although I have to say, sitting around for five or six hours in the snow, I’m kind of glad we didn’t have to do that (laughs), but I was ready to do that if it was called for.
I do know that there were a lot of people from West Virginia, and we tried to put them in the forefront, and there were some amazing speeches that I was able to watch from people who’ve been impacted by the work that Joe Manchin has done and the pain he’s caused – to former coal miners, and people who’ve had opiate issues in their family, and people who have just gotten sick from the water and the air, and how they haven’t been able to do anything about that. It was really great to be able to hear them speak and understand just how much pain he’s causing his constituents.
And I know one of my fellow arrestees was in a cop car with a cop who said, “Boy, you guys are really brave! And I think you’re doing the right thing.” So, we do know that there are other West Virginians who agree with us, not just the ones who were at the rally, so that was reassuring to hear. And we tried to be clear that we were doing this for your children and grandchildren, as much as ours. So hopefully that message gets through.
And people came in from all over the place. One woman, who is a zen priest, flew in from Portland, Oregon to join us in being locked down. But we had people from Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York. Everybody is feeling how important this is and how we really need to get the word out. So, I’m glad to see so many people excited about this and people ranged in age from people in their 20s to people in their 80s and so we’re all pretty united in thinking that we need to try to save the planet that we love.
For more information, visit WestVirginiaRising.org
