‘Hell Month’ heats up in Knoxville
By John Lapp
Oct. 20 (AGR) — At roughly 10am on Friday,
Oct. 7, an ex-Federal Marshal arrived at the house of Earth First! activist
Amanda Womac, in order to serve her with a temporary restraining order
(TRO). The TRO was being given to a handful of Katuah Earth First!ers
at the request of National Coal Corporation, a company that has recently
bought the rights to the Zeb Mountain mountain top removal (MTR) project
in Campbell County (the first MTR site in Tennessee) and a 40,000-acre
proposed MTR site in southeastern Kentucky.
National Coal Corporation (NCC) accused the activists of charges steming
from a five-person strong picket in front of their former offices on
Ebenezer Rd. on Sunday, Oct. 3. This protest was an uneventful picket;
the activists never saw a single NCC employee. After an hour of sitting
on a finely manicured lawn, EF!er Chris Irwin said, “Alright, we’ve
done our time; let’s go,” and all the activists left.
According to the TROs the five activists blocked traffic, marched, yelled,
and made NCC employees feel threatened by waving “bludgeons.”
NCC also said that they had received numerous threatening phone calls,
emails, and faxes, which they said EF! had provoked by distributing
literature which included NCC office information.
“This is just another example of corporations attempting to strip
First Amendment rights from citizens. We are an explicitly non-violent
group and threaten no physical violence, though we may cost them money
in their quest to destroy Southern Appalachia,” said Womac.
The actions are all part of “Hell Month,” a month-long campaign
to pressure NCC to halt its MTR practices.
NCC took five Katuah Earth First!ers (John Johnson, Chris Irwin, Amanda
Womac, Meagan Carter and Debbie Shumate) to court on the morning of
Friday, Oct. 15. NCC was attempting to gain a permanent restraining
order against Earth First!, but they failed to convince the judge, and
the TROs were struck down.
Charles Kite, a chairman with NCC, used a two foot high stack of papers
that he said were emails the company had received which said over and
over “STOP MTR.”
Earth First! lawyers John Eldridge and Mike Whalen objected repeatedly
to evidence Kite brought, and had most of it thrown out by Judge Sharon
Bell because none of the evidence could be linked to the activists or
KEF!. The NCC lawyer could not prove that any of the phone calls had
originated from Knoxville, the home of all activists in question. Soon
Kite gave up on the trial and did not get to introduce most of the evidence
he had brought to court.
According to an article put out by the Associated Press titled “National
Coal fails to get injunction against activists,” NCC has traced
many of the emails back to a computer lab at the University of North
Carolina. He also told the AP that “They are hiding behind the
veil of identity… They have been very clever to use e-mail addresses
that are difficult to penetrate, pay phones and courtesy phones.”
Though NCC lost this legal round, they intend to seek financial compensation
from EF! for new security and loss of business. Womac said, “This
all just shows that our tactics of forcing earth destroying corporations
to take direct responsibility for their actions is working, and we aren’t
going to stop.”
Jon Nix feels pressure at home
Since the declaration of Hell Month, Jon and Jeanne Nix, the CEO and
Secretary Treasurer of NCC, respectively, have been visited twice at
their West Knoxville home by two separate groups of anti-MTR activists.
On Sunday, Oct. 10, a group called Students for a Clean Environment
from Kingsport, TN held a short candle light vigil outside the Nix house.
The activists left a large black banner saying “Hands off Zeb Mountain”
over the Nix’s driveway, according to a posting on Indymedia.org.
“We targeted the homes of these two because they are the two people
most responsible for the proposed purchase of the Zeb Mountain…
If it is allowed to go through without a hitch NCC and other ruthless
coal companies plan to clear the whole Cumberland Plateau. MTR is the
worst form of devastation the Southern Appalachian Mountains have ever
faced. MTR destroys eco-systems and ages old mountain communities, and
those responsible for it must be held responsible.”
The group left peacefully, without being asked to, at 10pm after a number
of speeches and prayers.
Seventeen demonstrators arrived at the Nix’s house at around 9pm
on Monday, Oct. 18. The 17 demonstrators wore plastic clown masks and
bandanas and chanted loudly from across Keller Bend Dr., though they
never actually entered the Nix’s property. They beat on improvised
drums made out of five gallon buckets. The protesters held a banner
reading “Beware: We are Everywhere, We Will Fight for Zeb Mountain
– Hillbillies From Hell!”
They chanted “MTR: go to hell!” and “Whose mountains?
Our mountains!”
“Hello, Nixes! We are here tonight to let you know that we won’t
let you destroy our mountains!” yelled one activist over a bullhorn.
“We ain’t no liberal bullshit; we wont stop this until you
do!” claimed a demonstrator who identified himself as Scotty.
A separate unidentified group left three jack-o’-lanterns that
read “MTR? Fuck, No” on the driveway in front of the Nix home.
After about half an hour, Jon Nix set off his own car alarm from inside
his house in an attempt to scare the demonstrators off. The demonstrators
responded with a rendition of “Amazing Grace,” adapting its
lyrics to MTR. Eventually Jon Nix came out of his house and began yelling
to a neighbor to block the dead end road, so that the protesters would
not be able to leave.
One protester stepped forward and attempted to explain to Nix why she
was opposed to MTR.
“I’m a mother and I want you to stop destroying the mountains
around here. Please, you clearly have enough; you don’t need anymore.
Why do people like you always take everything from us?”
Nix ignored her.
Soon a Knox County Sheriff Deputy drove down the road and turned on
his lights. At this point, the group of protestors began to walk away,
yelling that they were dispersing peacefully, and had in fact broken
no laws. Nix followed the protestors to their cars and attempted to
write down the licenses.
As the caravan of four vehicles attempted to drive away a man in civilian
clothing with a German shepherd blocked them. The man identified himself
as a police officer and ordered the drivers to turn off their engines
and their lights.
After fifteen minutes an SUV pulled up in front of the lead car in the
caravan, effectively blocking any attempt to exit. A man who refused
to identify himself got out of the SUV and proceeded to copy the license
plates of all the activists’ vehicles.
Soon five squad cars had arrived at the scene. The officers questioned
the driver of the first car as to how the protesters had found the home.
The police went car to car and took the IDs of every protester. Sgt.
Martin threatened that if they didn’t give the police their social
security numbers, they would spend the night with the FBI.
The FBI showed up next. Three agents, who identified themselves as Mark,
Steve, and Shawn, refused to give their last names to the activists.
The FBI detained one activist for almost an hour, questioning him about
an alleged incendiary device that was left in the mailbox of an NCC
executive on Oct. 23
“Why the hell would I leave an incendiary device in some guy’s
mailbox on Saturday and later come back to his house on Monday?”
asked the activist. “That’s totally crazy. It seems more like
the FBI made up the entire story. They wouldn’t say whose house
it was left at. That’s just crazy. You’d think if they were
really worried about a bomb or whatever they’d have searched our
cars, but they didn’t even search me.”
Two officers took the activists out of their cars one by one and took
their pictures, supposedly for the FBI. Then a man who said he was a
neighbor screamed that if the activists came back he’d “fucking
shoot them” and called them all cocksuckers. When an activist asked
the FBI whether or not he was going to do anything about the threat
to kill them, the agent said, “It’s a local issue.”
Eventually, the FBI agents left, saying, “As long as this stays
non-violent you won’t be seeing me at you homes, work and school.
But if it does get violent, you can expect to see me very soon, and
I won’t be nice.”
At 12:30am, after about two and a half hours, the police let the caravan
drive away.
