Flat Chancellor’s Tour of Saline County, IL
[su_dropcap style=”flat”]I[/su_dropcap]n the Spring of 2014 Students Against Peabody staged protests at Washington University in St. Louis to shed light on the current ties between Wash U and Peabody Energy, a company that exploits communities in Rocky Branch, Illinois; Black Mesa, Arizona; and St. Louis to just name a few. One of many ties between Peabody and Wash U is that Greg Boyce, executive chairman and former CEO of Peabody effective May 4th, is on Wash U’s Board of Trustees. Boyce is up for reelection to the Board Friday, May 1st; now it’s time to put the pressure on!
One year ago students made a simple request: Chancellor Wrighton, tour Peabody’s extraction sites and hear from people who experience the destruction wrought by Peabody first hand.
When Judy Kellen (a resident of Rocky Branch, IL) came to Wash U for a Students Against Peabody rally last April, Chancellor Wrighton promised to visit her and bear witness to the disenfranchisement and destruction of her community. The Chancellor failed to follow through on his promise. Meanwhile, over the past year Peabody continued to blast and dig for coal across the street from Judy’s front door.
This weekend students visited Judy and the farming community of Rocky Branch in Saline County, Illinois. We witnessed enormous machinery forming mountains of coal waste (gob piles) as a byproduct of the strip-mining process that prevents land from ever being farmable again. Due to the proximity to the mines, the housing market in the area has plummeted: residents of the community are unable to sell their homes. Judy explained, “Our property has lost its value. Even if you want to get out, you can’t.” Dynamite blasts from the surrounding mines shake the foundations of their homes, sometimes twice in one day. Mining, processing, and shipping high sulfur coal, contaminates the air and water of this rural community and creates vast stretches of wasted land that no developers or farmers want to touch. Despite all this, community members continue to resist Peabody’s ever expanding coal operations from reaching their front doors. Chancellor Wrighton refused to see Peabody’s impact on Rocky Branch, so we took Flat Chancellor with us instead.
[su_divider top=”no”]
Flat Chancellor: Strip Mine, Saline County, Illinois – Video
Flat Chancellor: Devaluation of Property in Saline County, Illinois – Video
[su_divider top=”no”]
Flat Chancellor is an attempt to hold the Chancellor to his promise of hearing out the citizens of Rocky Branch through political satire. Face the reality, Chancellor! Don’t let coal money buy you blinders. If this was the view from your house, you wouldn’t have the luxury of avoidance. With Greg Boyce on the board, Wash U is complicit in the destruction of communities all over the world, including Rocky Branch.
We are calling on the Chancellor and Board Members, on May 1st, to vote ‘NO’ on reelecting Greg Boyce to the Wash U Board of Trustees. Be the responsible community partner that you claim to be: cut ties with Peabody!
[su_divider top=”no”]
[su_divider top=”no”]
If you want to get more involved or find out more about the movement, check out these sources:
