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Got strip mines in your back yard?  Is fly-rock and flood water eating into your home’s foundation? 

Chris Irwin, a staff attorney for United Mountain Defense (UMD), specializes in paralyzing and eliminating such pests.  His Tennessee non-profit is dedicated to fighting Appalachian strip mining. 

(Surveying a mine site.  Photo courtesy of Chris Irwin.)

“Winning campaigns is really my bottom line,” says Irwin, “if I can file a two page document or complaint, and shut the bastards down for three months that way, I’m all right with that.”

I met him at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC)  just last week.  He was tabling for UMD, looking somewhat nonchalant about it; something about his appearance told me he’d rather be out on the front lines.  He wore woodland camouflage pants (go hippies), maroon button up shirt (go Hokies), and cammo poncho (go militants?).  He was well groomed, but decidedly casual. 

(Irwin will instruct activists in how to do tree-sit protests.  Photo:  Sarah McManus.)

I sat down with him at his booth, which was strategically located next to a free coffee kiosk, and rapped about how to take down the The Man with his own administrative game. As I said, UMD’s beef is with Appalachian mining.  And they’ve become pros at gathering precise evidence to fight it.

After the Kingston spill devastated the Emory River, in Tennessee, in December 2008, UMD was able to raise $33,000 in three days, and test 50 local residents for contamination, which otherwise would not have happened.  The disaster also caused UMD to expand and improve its scientific testing, making it more credible in court cases and public hearings.

“Now we’ve got a system… we can do water testing that’s bombproof, we can do physical testing on people that’s bombproof, we can do air monitoring…”

Maybe mining isn’t your issue.  How about timber sales, housing developments, or Walmart?  Irwin has a wide array of experience in direct action campaigns, having been a protestor from the age of 16.

“Dealer’s choice,” says Irwin, “pick a cause… I was involved in timber sales.. .I was in the peace movement, fighting nuclear weapons… I’ve worked with indigenous [peoples] fighting roads, I mean, pick one…”

(Irwin and his field crews will sometimes roll on 4-wheelers, so miners won’t mess with them.  It’s a well known fact in the coalfields that 4-wheelers pack firearms, and bottles of whiskey.  Photo:  James Kane.)

Having gotten most of the war front fever out of his system, he is now more content to fight the smart fight as a lawyer than to fight the hard fight as a demonstrator.  “I got kinda tired of being in jail,” he says. 

“We organize civil disobedience actions, and I still do trainings on platforms and stuff, but I’m lazy… When I’m drinking beer tonight, getting intoxicated, I’m multi-tasking.  I’m also shutting down a strip mine.”

(Field trip.  Photo:  Daniel Maurer)

(Chris Irwin, in battle dress.  Photo:  James Kane)