Claim: Julia Bonds collaborated and campaigned with the United Mine Workers Union and personalities against mine blasting and other coal mining hazards.
Evidence: By 2003, she had led the CRMW into a partnership with the United Mine Workers Union to halt mining companies' dangerous use of overweight coal trucks and to convince the state's mining oversight agency to better protect valley communities from mine blasting. In 2009, she brought in actress Daryl Hannah and NASA scientist James Hansen to protest the proximity of a Massey coal slurry dam and storage silo in the vicinity of a West Virginia elementary school. Coal River Mountain Watch, the Sierra Club and other groups filed a lawsuit in April 2010 accusing Massey Energy of violating the U.S. Clean Water Act. For years, she dreamed of a "thousand hillbilly march" in Washington, DC. In September 2010, that dream became a reality as thousands marched on the White House for "Appalachia Rising"', a mass movement to persuade US Congress to halt to the issuance of valley fill and other types of permits that allow companies to completely remove a mountain top in the search for coal. After sitting in at the offices of the Army Corps of Engineers, blockading the EPA and PNC Bank, an unprecedented number of about 100 protesters were arrested at the White House.