The Center for Coalfield Justice is celebrating 30 years as an organization working to protect our environment, invest in rural and small-town communities, and advocate for justice. Our former Executive Director, Veronica Coptis, discussed some of her thoughts about the milestone and what CCJ has meant for her.
Veronica worked at CCJ for over a decade, including six years as executive director. She oversaw a significant expansion of our staff and the scope of our work during that time. “Over these three decades, we’ve achieved significant milestones and evolved into a stronger, more sophisticated entity,” said Coptis.
CCJ began as the Tri-State Citizen Mining Network in 1994. As the name suggests, much of our focus at the time was around coal mining. Much of our work included informing residents about their rights as landowners, raising awareness about damage to homes, roads, and waterways, and, of course, raising hell and winning lawsuits around the draining of Duke Lake due to coal mining.
All of this work continues today, though we’ve added a number of campaigns and issues areas to our work as well. In the mid-2000s, when the fracking boom hit the Marcellus region, CCJ broadened our scope to include the new, rapidly expanding areas of oil and gas leasing, waste management, and health concerns of fracked gas. As the coal economy continues to decline we’ve included more work around economic justice and a just transition for workers and communities. We’ve also become more involved in social issues like harm reduction around the opioid epidemic, Black Lives Matter protests, and protecting democracy. You can read more about our full history and evolution as an organization here.
None of this could have been possible without the strong leadership and guiding hand of leaders like Veronica. That leadership is a consistent theme of our 30 year history; Veronica credits the guidance of her mentors at CCJ for the skills and success she was able to build. “I started at CCJ in the summer of 2009 and was fortunate enough to be trained by some of our founders,” she said. “With CCJ, I found guidance, my purpose, and the leadership investment to be in the role I am now in.” Since 2023, Veronica has been a Senior Advisor with Taproot Earth where she continues to “fight for a future where everyone can live, rest, and thrive in the places they call home.”
Veronica will be in attendance at our 30th Anniversary Fall Fundraiser on October 5th from 5-9:00 PM at the Stone Pavilion in Washington Park. “I am excited to celebrate this organization’s critical work over the last 30 years,” she says, “and I know the next 30 years will be so impactful.”
You are invited to join Veronica, CCJ staff and board members, and our friends, neighbors, and allies from around southwestern Pennsylvania to celebrate together. Veronica and some other speakers from CCJ’s history will be speaking throughout the night about our legacy and future. If you can’t make it, we challenge you to donate $30 to commemorate the last 30 years of building power in rural and small-town communities.
