Published: August 28, 2009 12:01 pm      

Tree-sitters' ground support team jailed

Two women supplying ground support to a pair of tree-sitting environmental activists in southern West Virginia were in jail Friday on charges of trespassing on Massey Energy property for the second time this week.

Kim Ellis, 32, and Zoe Beavers, 28, were arrested late Thursday after refusing the security staff’s request to leave the area near the Edwight mine in Raleigh County. Both were held in the Southern Regional Jail on $1,000 bonds.

State Police Sgt. M.A. Smith said he couldn’t allow the activists to blatantly continue crossing Massey’s property, defying a previous no-trespassing order and putting themselves in danger in the dark mountain woods.

Both sides have been otherwise cooperative, Smith said, and Virginia-based Massey is not pressuring police to end the protest.

“We’re going to wait them out as long as we can wait them out, until it gets too dangerous,” Smith said. “If I put somebody up in the tree to take them out, it’s going to be a danger. The best thing to do is to keep the others from trespassing and wait them out.”

Massey had refused to comment on the situation, but in an e-mail to The Associated Press on Friday, Chief Executive Don Blankenship indicated he was in no rush to oust the protesters, either.

“The coal won’t spoil for a million years,” he said. “I doubt the tree climbers will be there then.”

Protesters Laura Steepleton and Nick Stocks have been camped out in 80-foot-high treetop platforms since Tuesday to halt blasting and draw attention to Massey’s mountaintop removal mining practices. Blasting throws rock and dust, and its vibrations can damage homes by shifting foundations and cracking walls.

The protesters say they won’t come down until Massey stops blasting, and pays for health care and home repairs for people who live near the mine.

Steepleton said via text message that she and Stocks have managed to stay dry despite the rain that fell overnight and Friday morning. While Massey employees were curious and friendly the first few days, she said security guards are now under their trees and not talking to them.

Steepleton also said Massey employees stepped up their overnight harassment, flashing lights at the treetops and blasting air and truck horns.