Protesters filled Ohio University President Robert Glidden's office in an expression of discontent at a sit-in on Friday in Cutler Hall that started at 10 a.m. and lasted until the building closed at 5 p.m.
One OU student and two Athens residents were arrested for trespassing when they refused to leave the office at the end of the business day.
Zach Gibbons-Ballew, an OU senior, and Nate Ebert and Katie Williams, Athens residents, were charged with criminal trespass, criminal mischief and resisting arrest, according to an OU Police Department report. The protesters had their arms chained together inside metal pipes, making it difficult for officers to remove them from the building.
Members and volunteers of the student group Protecting Ohio's Public Land, Air and Rivers protested OU's stance on the recent mining permit granted to Ohio Valley Coal Company allowing mining under the university's Dysart Woods in Belmont County.
The permit, granted by the Ohio Division of Mineral Resources Management, allows limited underground mining, according to an Aug. 15 ODMRM news release.
OU is filing a precautionary appeal to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to slow down the mining process in order to gather more information, said OU media specialist Jack Jeffery.
But participants of the sit-in are not satisfied.
Protesters want university officials to file a request for a stay, which is an injunction asking mining to halt during an appeal of mining, said Dysart Defenders coordinator and sit-in participant Chad Kister.
OU senior and protester Megan Ganguly said the university has a responsibility to protect the woods.
Ohio University was gifted with a really great piece of land
Dysart Woods she said, and they were given that land with the belief that it would be protected and that Ohio University would protect it.
POPLAR and Dysart Defenders both plan on filing an appeal and requesting for a stay, but they need the weight of the university behind them, Kister said.
OU ecology committee president Jeff Buckley said his group requested that the university appeal the permit, stating that it is important that the owner of the land do everything to ensure that the condition of the surface remains safe.
People particularly are concerned about mining under the old-growth forest, which is an area with at least seven 100-year-old trees per acre.
The coal company, which owns the mining rights to Dysart Woods, is planning to use long-wall mining and surface support mining, said Russ Gibson, manager of permitting and hydrology of ODMRM.
Buckley said long-wall mining removes all the coal from the area and can cause subsidence of the land above, while surface support mining is less invasive and takes out portions of the coal in the area, leaving pillars to support the surface.
According to a news release, the coal company will use surface support mining in the areas of old-growth forest.
There is no question that Dysart Woods will be protected by our mining plans Ohio Valley President and General Manager John R. Forrelli said in the release.
But the ecology committee is not convinced that the mining would not harm the surface. The committee feels there is too little old-growth area left in Ohio, Buckley said.
Any person or group that can be affected by the permit has the right to file an appeal by today, 30 days after the permit was granted, Gibson said.
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by Liz Amrhein
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Katie Williams, Zach Gibbons-Ballew and Nate Ebert, left to right, sit on the floor of President Robert Glidden's office with their arms joined together in metal pipes in protest to save Dysart Woods from being mined on Friday morning. The three were ther
