TALKING POINTS
* The kids at Marsh Fork Elementary need a new school in their own community now more than ever.

* Every child deserves a safe and healthy school in their own community.

* Forget a new silo – build the kids a new school!

* Massey’s own air quality permit predicts an increase in the amount of coal dust (3.49 tons per year) emitted by operating a second silo.

*Neither the state Department of Education nor the US Environmental Protection Agency determined coal dust levels in the school. The EPA’s test was not done during normal operation of the coal plant.

*The state has the money for a new school and the Raleigh County Board of Education is willing to accept it.

*The sludge dam just 400 yards above the school holds 20 times the volume of the Buffalo Creek sludge dam disaster that killed 125 people in 1972.

More Background

Marsh Fork Elementary School sits just 225 feet from a coal loading silo that releases chemical-laden coal dust and 400 yards from a 385 foot tall leaking sludge dam with a nearly 3 billion gallon capacity. Independent studies have shown the school to be full of coal dust.

Massey Energy who owns the coal processing facility has been attempting to build a second coal processing plant near the school for years, but community opposition, action and research led the Department of Environmental Protection to reject Massey’s permit request for the second silo.

On Tuesday March 13 the state Surface Mine Board overturned the Department of Environmental Protection order that blocked the silo.
Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/ypx39z

Community members have been working for years on getting a new school for the children that attend Marsh Fork Elementary in their community so that they don’t have to breathe coal dust and toxic chemicals daily. The grandfather of a recent Marsh Fork graduate walked from West Virginia to DC to raise support for a new school and to meet with Senator Byrd to request a new school in the community. And elementary students around the world have written letters to Governor Manchin and collected pennies to help build a new school.

Find out more here:
surprise delivery of letters to Governor Manchin: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/1033
Governor avoids meeting with children: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/1010
Pennies of Promise launch with deliver of pennies to the capitol: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/322
Ed’s walk from WV to DC: http://duke.securenet-server.net/~mnoerpel/pennies/blog.php