ACORN involved in anti-coal movement

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September 2, 2009 The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now does not, according to its website, have any office or physical presence in West Virginia, but one of its largest donors, the Tides Foundation has funneled almost $250,000 to groups, including anti-coal groups, in West Virginia.[1]

[edit] ACORN

West Virginia is one of nine states where ACORN does not operate.

In the past, ACORN has been accused of paying protesters to counter universal health care protesters, of illegally breaking into foreclosed homes to move people back in, and after a 2008 election voter registration fraud scandal, some members have gone to jail.

Until this year, the Tides Foundation had the co-founder of ACORN on its board of directors. The Tides Foundation contributes funds it receives from donors and grants to progressive organizations.

The group contributes a lot of money to ACORN and its many allied groups, contributing $1,254,418 in grants to three of ACORN's groups, ACORN Institute, ACORN International, and the ACORN Living Wage Center, between 2008 and 2004. Wade Rathke is a former the Tides Board of Directors member and founder of ACORN and is responsible for much of this directed funding.

Rathke's brother, Dale Rathke, was ACORN's CFO until it was revealed he had embezzled almost $950,000 from the group between 1999 and 2000. Wade Rathke subsequently stepped down from ACORN and Tides Foundation after the story broke.

Tides founder, Drummond Pike, anonymously donated about $740,000 to pay the remaining restitution Dale owed to ACORN.[1]

[edit] Tides donations

Working for accountable government now


Tides has donated $138,000 to West Virginia groups between 2004 and 2008. West Virginia Free received the largest percentage of this, at $120,000. West Virginia Free is a family planning and pro-choice organization, which is hosting feminist Gloria Steinem October 20, 2009, at the West Virginia Cultural Center.

The Rainbow Community Center received $3,000 of the money. The Rainbow Community Center is a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender advocacy group in Clarksburg.

[edit] Anti-coal

Two anti-coal groups received funds from Tides, including $40,000 given to the Appalachian Voices, a North Carolina-based grassroots activist group which protests mountaintop removal in West Virginia, as well as logging and carbon dioxide pollution. Coal River Mountain Watch, a West Virginia-based group which also protests mountaintop removal, received $15,000 from Tides.

Tides only funds a few anti-coal groups directly, but most of Tide’s funding goes through the Appalachian Community Fund. The Appalachian Community Fund is based out of Knoxville, Tennessee, founded in 1987. It provides grants “to groups working for progressive social change in Central Appalachia (East Tennessee, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and West Virginia), and to be a sustainable resource base for community organizing and social change work in this region.”

The Appalachian Community Fund gave $118,840 in grants between 2007 and 2001 to West Virginia organizations. Of that, $37,657 went to West Virginia Free, $37,645 went to Coal River Mountain Watch and $26,227 went to the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.[1]

[edit] Funding from outside the community

The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Appalachian Voices, and Coal River Mountain Watch are connected to various efforts to end coal mining in West Virginia. The Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and Appalachian Voices sponsor the Coal River Wind Project, which is an effort by Coal River Mountain Watch to end mountaintop removal on Coal River Mountain, advocating for replacing the surface mines with electric-generating wind farms.

Coal River Wind paid for a study to compare mountaintop removal and wind energy done by Michael Hendryx, Ph.D., associate director of the West Virginia University Institute for Health Policy Research in West Virginia University’s Department of Community Medicine. He did the research through his firm, Downstream Strategies.

The report, funded by the environmental groups mentioned as well as Sierra Club, Student Environmental Action Coalition, Green America, West Virginia Environmental Council, and Progressive Democrats of West Virginia, favored wind power.

Hendryx's most recent study, using strict data rather than scientific research, showed that the costs of illness and deaths in West Virginia’s coal mining regions were higher than the economic benefits that coal brings to the state. Many of his studies follow this pattern.[2]

Both Coal River Mountain Watch and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition sponsor Mountain Justice, which hosts summer camps teaching activists to protest mountaintop removal. All three of these environmental groups have paid positive attention to and support of two Climate Ground Zero-affiliated protesters who climbed trees at a Massey Energy site in southern West Virginia. The couple refused to come down for days, ending their protest on August 31, 2009, when they were arrested. They are currently out on bail.

The funding for most of anti-coal groups in West Virginia, including other progressive groups, can be largely traced to sources outside West Virginia, such as the Tides Foundation.[1]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "ACORN’s Fingerprints on the Anti-Coal Movement," West Virginia Watchdog, September 2, 2009
  2. ↑ "A WVEx Original: A Study of Michael Hendryx and Flawed Reports," West Virginia Examiner, July 8, 2009
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