Latest, longest Massey tree-sit protest ends

Two environmental activists on Friday ended the latest -- and longest -- protest action against Massey Energy as the one-year anniversary approaches of the start of a peaceful civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop-removal mining. As temperatures dropped and a winter storm approached, 19-year-old Amber Nitchman and 28-year-old Eric Blevins descended voluntarily from a pair of oak trees at Massey's Bee Tree Mine along Coal River Mountain in Raleigh County. Nitchman and Blevins began their protest -- sitting in tarp-covered tree stands 50 to 60 feet in the air -- on Jan. 21. A third protester, 23-year-old David Aaron Smith, was originally part of the action but came down on Monday after his equipment got wet. All three were arrested, as were several other activists who were charged with trespassing when they ventured onto the mine site to try to provide supplies to the tree-sitters.