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Protesting the public health, property and environmental impacts of the coal industry, a group of about 50 demonstrators gathered Monday afternoon during rush hour on the corner of a busy Upper St. Clair highway in front of Consol Energy's Upper St. Clair headquarters.

Led by Beverly Braverman, executive director of the Mountain Watershed in Melcroft and chair of the Tri-state Citizens Mining Network, the demonstrators who flocked from across southwestern Pennsylvania represented a half-dozen different environmental groups.

Their declared foes: environmental scofflaws in the coal and energy industries and toothless watchdogs in the Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency tasked with regulating the industries.

The protest was one of several concurrent "Coalfield Justice Day," demonstrations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana.

Local demonstrators set up dozens of gray cardboard tombstones, monuments to the streams, homes and communities harmed by coal extraction.

Inside the air-conditioned offices at Consol Plaza, in the headquarters of one of the nation's largest coal companies, executives appeared to be oblivious to the protest.

"Nobody's told us what it's about. ... but if they do believe change is needed in the law (Act 54), we disagree. The law is doing what it was intended to do. What they want to do is outlaw mining, and we disagree," said Consol spokesman Thomas Hoffman.

"The (tombstones) they ought to be erecting are for the thousands of jobs and businesses which support mining that will be lost if this group has their way to outlaw mining."

Many protestors, however, said they simply want the protection of the law on their side.

Don and Margie Stark, of Eighty Four, Washington County, a pair of high school teachers in the Baldwin School District, said they never envisioned they'd be carrying signs and joining a sidewalk protest "at a time when we ought to be looking forward to retiring and enjoying life." But the Starks said mining laws aren't working.

The Starks said they lost their drinking water and their home of 29 years broke in two after a longwall mining operation passed nearby.

"It was like a slow earthquake," Margie Stark said.

"It took me three years to build our house. It took them two weeks to destroy it," her husband added.

Although the state's mining law, Act 54, requires coal companies to reimburse homeowners for damage from active mines and provide new water sources for those whose wells are destroyed, protestors said both the law and its enforcement leave much to be desired.

Water wells, for instance, may be replaced with supplies that are hauled in, as the Starks' water is, or with the extension of public water supply lines.

But sometimes the law simply doesn't work, said Carol Kelly, of Saltlick Township, Fayette County.

She hasn't had any dealings with underground mining, but she said her experience with a nearby Amerikohl Mining Inc. strip mine was almost as frustrating. Kelly said the operation spewed dust into her home and shook the area around with blasting day and night before moving on and leaving her water virtually undrinkable.

Kelly, a nurse's aide at Latrobe Area Hospital, said she's had to hire a lawyer to try to collect the damage the mining operation did to her home and water supply and just learned that she'll have to hire a second lawyer to wade through yet another layer of the bureaucracy that regulates mining.

"I'm not against them stripping coal. I know this country needs coal to move on. ... I am against them taking my water and damaging my home," Kelly said.

Bill Lindley, a retired United Nations worker who now operates his family's 200-acre farm near the Washington County village of Lone Pine, hasn't had any problems yet. But he's concerned whether the farm, in his family for the last six generations, will be able to operate should mining damage the water table. His family sold the coal rights to the land in 1905 and he may well be sitting in the path of upcoming mine operations.

Lindley said he fears that the small streams, springs and wells that go dry during mining operations could be just the beginning of serious long-term environmental problems.

Others insisted that southwestern Pennsylvania, with its many coal-fired power plants, already is suffering from health hazards from smoke and ash the plants generate.

Not everyone spoke forcefully. Brandon Hudock, decided to act instead.

The 27-year-old Washington County businessman, who pitched a tent at the corner of Consol's property, began a hunger strike there last Friday. Hudock said his family's business, Hothouse Floral Co., in Eighty Four, sustained massive damage when it was undermined in 1998. He said he launched his personal protest to force Consol to address his family's business losses.

"But this wasn't about me today. This was about getting better laws for the future," Hudock said.

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