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Sierra Club Lawsuits

Blair Mountain Added to National Register of Historic Places; State of West Virginia Moves to De-List

Case Updates:

April 2, 2009

Sierra Club achieved a monumental victory in late March when Blair Mountain was added to the National Register of Historic Places.  Blair Mountain was the site of the largest armed labor conflict in U.S. history; in 1921, armed union coal miners marched to the mountain to confront the Logan County sheriff and other coal industry minions who were trying to prevent the United Mine Worker organization from accessing nonunion coal mines. Sierra Club and its allies have been working since the 1990s to get Blair Mountain on the National Register in response to a proposal by nonunion Massey Energy to strip-mine the mountain.

Just a week after the site was added, officials in Governor Manchin’s administration moved to remove Blair Mountain from the National Register. In order to have Blair Mountain listed on the Register, the majority of property owners within the boundaries of the site needed to approve its listing. The State Historic Preservation Office recently announced that it initially failed to count all of the votes opposing the listing and erred in adding the site to the Register. The State has issued no proof to confirm this assertion, and Sierra Club and its allies will work diligently to ensure that this sacred site remains protected. 

May 2, 2006

Over eighty years ago on Blair Mountain in West Virginia, 10,000 coal miners rose up against armed federal troops in defense of their right to unionize. The undeclared civil war that followed lasted ten days and became known as the Battle of Blair Mountain. Today, another battle is being fought on this site of America's largest-ever labor struggle. Despite widespread efforts to preserve this valuable place as a historic site, a mountaintop removal permit is pending on land where parts of the battle occurred. Mountaintop removal blasts the earth and rock of mountaintops apart and fills valleys with debris, and in many cases completely covers streams and causes damage to neighboring homes. The Sierra Club has worked for years with local residents on a successful campaign aimed at convincing the state of West Virginia to nominate the Blair Mountain site for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. In July 2005, the state formally requested that about 1,600 acres of Blair Mountain be included on the National Register. Unfortunately, coal mining companies have now sued the state in an attempt to overturn the nomination. The Sierra Club moved to intervene in the lawsuit to help defend the state's decision, and in May 2006 a West Virginia judge granted the intervention. Local residents who support our legal action agree that the site should be protected, as mountaintop removal mining has already destroyed too much of our Appalachian cultural and environmental heritage.

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