Washington, DC–Twenty-one people were arrested on Thursday when they obstructed the gates of the Danish Embassy. The protesters, about 100 in total, had come from West Virginia to make a moral appeal to the Danish ambassador to hold Rockwool, a Danish company, to the same health and safety standards when it operates abroad as it does when in Denmark.

Last week, members of the group Resist Rockwool had met with embassy staff to plead for assistance in stopping Denmark-based Rockwool from building a highly polluting factory in the vicinity of four Jefferson County schools, residential developments, daycare centers, a hospice and a VA medical center. So far, they haven’t received the public response they requested, and no one from the embassy would speak to anyone from the group at the gates.

The gathering made sure they could hear them inside. For more than two and a half hours, they beat drums, chanted “No toxic Rockwool!” and sang “We shall not be moved” and the John Denver anthem “Country Roads.”

Finding the embassy unresponsive, 21 members of the group obstructed the gates until Secret Service officers arrested them.

“We came here because Rockwool is based in Denmark, and we want them to know that our children are as important as their children and to put pressure on them to move away,” said Ruth Hatcher, a 40-year Ranson resident whose husband and sister were arrested in the blockade.

﻿

She objects to Rockwool building a factory right across the street from North Jefferson Elementary School and says that children are more affected by pollutants than adults. “These children will certainly have health issues, immediate and also in the future, and I don’t think it’s fair,” she said.

Rockwool manufactures mineral wool fiber for fire-resistant insulation products, which it markets as a “sustainable” product because of the energy savings insulation provides. But, critics point out that the energy-intensive, polluting manufacturing process is left out of the picture. Rockwool would burn 84 tons of coal and 1.6 million cf per day of fracked gas to heat its furnace to a fiery temperature hot enough to melt rock.

Resist Rockwool contends that the factory planned for Jefferson County could not be built in Denmark. Rockwool’s business model is to “outsource” pollution to other countries with less rigorous standards, according to Stewart Acuff of Martinsburg.

Denmark’s standards are “too stiff” for Rockwool to build the same kind of factory there, Acuff said. “They have some of the finest standards for health, quality of life, no pollution, clean air, fighting climate [change] of anywhere in the world, but what they do is, they outsource the toxicity to poor and vulnerable communities all over the world,” he said.

“It is not by mistake that Rockwool and Jefferson County brought this factory across the street from a Title 1 school,” said Morgan Sell, a mother of two children, one with asthma. “It is not by mistake that they chose this land that they thought was rural West Virginia. They thought we didn’t have social media, they thought we couldn’t read!”

“They came to us because we were poor, and they thought they were just going to come in and we were going to roll over, because other parts of West Virginia would do that, but this is a unique county,” said Nancy Gregory of Charles Town, who was arrested at the gate. West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, where Jefferson County is located, is geographically close to Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC, and is often considered part of the Metropolitan DC area.

Democratic processes are better upheld in Denmark, said David Levine of Martinsburg. “[Rockwool] came in, said they were green, got $37 million in incentives and then applied for an air permit, which was then sped through,” he said. “Denmark would never have a corruption of democracy like that. They would make sure there were public hearings, they’d make sure people were notified. They wouldn’t just spring this on an unwitting public.”

“We want the Danish government to call on Rockwool to adopt Danish standards wherever they place their factories,” Acuff said. “We’re here for the poor and vulnerable people around the world that Rockwool is exploiting right now, and we’re not going to let that happen in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia,” he said.

Rockwool released a statement acknowledging the protest. “We have an unbreakable commitment to meet and exceed environmental standards and requirements,” it said in a statement. “As we have from the outset, we will continue to engage constructively and transparently with both opponents and supporters.” The plant will provide 150 jobs, Rockwool says.