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Mountaintop removal mining is a mining method that involves, well, using dynamite to blow the top of mountains off to get at the coal underneath. The industry prefers the more benign term "surface mining."
This, as you might have suspected, causes local problems: the blown off mountain bits bury the streams and creeks below and pollute the local water supply with arsenic. And it matters for the rest of us too: coal-fired power plants, of course, are a major driver of global warming.
Environmentalists, including many people in Appalachia, have waged a long campaign against mountaintop removal. (The industry probably didn’t make many friends when they suggested that birth defects allegedly caused by pollution were caused by inbreeding. Plus, the highly-automated process is not much of a job creator).
Now activists in Philly and nation-wide are targeting one the industry's major financial backers: the Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank. Last November, PNC told activists they would pull back on funding mountaintop removal. Activists say that PNC pulled a fast one: they promised to not invest in an energy company only if "a majority of its production from MTR mining."
"The problem is that not a single major coal producer gets the majority of its production from MTR," says organizer Zachary Hershman. "So PNC adopts this policy and it doesn't do anything meaningful to curtail their investments, because it doesn't even apply to the companies they finance."
Press release from the Earth Quaker Action Team below.
Quaker Environmentalists Hold Trial Inside PNC Over Investments in Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining
Bank branch closed for three hours as PNC refuses to meet with Quakers
PHILADELPHIA – 25 environmentalists and members of the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) held a public trial inside the main lobby of PNC Regional Headquarters on Thursday, charging PNC with “Impersonating a Green Bank”.
“PNC promotes itself as an environmentally responsible bank, but the truth is they are the nation’s #1 financier of corporations that practice mountaintop removal coal mining, which has destroyed over 500 mountains and led to thousands of violations of the Clean Water Act.” said Jonathan Snipes, acting as lead prosecutor in the case.
The trial, which featured a robed judge, prosecution, defense, and a full jury, caused the bank to close its customer branch for the duration of the event, which lasted a little over three hours. Four members of EQAT, acting as bailiffs for the court, stood in front of a row of management elevators and refused to leave the bank when directed to do so by PNC Security, demanding that the Regional President J. William Mills come down to the lobby and answer the charges on behalf of the bank.
“We committed this act of civil disobedience today to send a message to PNC Bank – that there can be no business as usual while children are being born with birth defects thanks to PNC investments. If PNC wants to be the green bank they claim to be, they need to stop all financing for any company involved in this criminal practice,” said Lina Blount, a student at Bryn Mawr College and one of the EQAT bailiffs.
At the close of the trial, the group held PNC Bank in ‘contempt’ for its refusal to send a representative to the Court, and delivered a verdict of Guilty, pledging that the seriousness of the charges and the requirements of justice would warrant further action.
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