Elise Keaton is the new chair of the West Virginia Mountain Party.
At the end of the Mountain Party’s day-long convention Saturday in Sutton, West Virginia, Charlotte Pritt surprised the 30 or so delegates and announced that she would be stepping down as chair. Pritt nominated Keaton to take her place. Keaton was elected to be the new chair.
Earlier this year, Pritt argued against running Bob Henry Baber for U.S. Senate. But the convention voted earlier in the day to run Baber in the Senate race.
Keaton is executive director of Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, which organizes against mountaintop removal mining.
“I want to see the party expand and grow,” Keaton said. “I want to see us as the teller of truth in West Virginia. The dangers from fracking and mountaintop removal — it’s not about jobs. We can’t sacrifice our lives, water and communities for jobs. On mountaintop removal mining and fracking, a moratorium is imperative. We know the dangers.”
Keaton said that “it’s more than green energy that is going to save our state.”
“We have to reinvigorate our communities, we have to reinvigorate our base economies, our local economies, and find out where our power is as a community and where our knowledge power is as people.”
Keaton said that very few people can see mountaintop removal mining up close and not be moved.
West Virginia House of Delegates member Mike Manypenny recently went to Kayford Mountain to observe first hand the effects of moutaintop removal mining.
“Manypenny said that if every member of the West Virginia House of Delegates stood on that mountain, we would have different policies around mountaintop removal.”
Keaton said that, as far as she knows, Manypenny is the only member of the West Virginia House of Delegates to travel to Kayford Mountain to view the effects of mountaintop removal mining.
The Mountain Party is running a number of anti-mountaintop removal mining candidates in November, including Danny Lutz against Republican Paul Espinosa in Jefferson County and Dianna Strickland for Kanawha County Commissioner.
Strickland is the owner of the Sugar and Spice Pastry Shop in Sissonville, West Virginia.
Strickland has taken a leadership role in the campaign stop the mountaintop removal site adjacent to the Kanawha State Park in Charleston.
Until recently, Stickland was a member of the Democratic Party, but she switched recently to become a member of the Mountain Party.
“The Democratic Party is the biggest part of the problem, especially when they come in and pretend to care about the people and then vote for everything against the people,” Strickland said.
Stickland said it was the chemical spill earlier this year in Charleston that turned her against the Democratic Party.
“This is the third time that the industry has poisoned my water,” Strickland said. “I used to drink mountain water running fresh off the mountains in Cabin Creek. They poisoned that water and we were told not to drink it. My father then dug a well. We drank well water for quite a few years. That well water was then poisoned by the coal industry. I moved into a mountaintop home. I put in 1,800 feet of water line and now my municipal water supply has poisoned me.”
“What’s left? They have run me out of my holler. They have destroyed my property value. They have poisoned me and my family once. I moved to a capital city to prevent that from happening, thinking I’m secure in a capital city. They come in again, poison my water, look to destroy my property value and ruin any chance for a future that I’ve built for myself. I will no longer accept that one industry’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is my important than my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”