Janet Keating, Executive Director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Janet Keating has spent a lifetime as an activist, defender and organizer. Keating, executive director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, began her career in 1983, as a volunteer with a campaign to protect the wetlands in her hometown of Huntington, W.Va.
Since then, she has fought to protect her community from environmental threats big and small. Her tenacity and fearless approach make her the latest addition to EWG’s Women of Courage series.
“My parents were far from wealthy, so a lot of my pleasurable activities were outdoors,” Keating told EWG in an interview. “I learned to love nature at an early age.” That connection turned into a passion when she was elected president of her local Audubon Society chapter. She led a hard fight to protect a local wetlands beloved by birders. The campaign ended in a compromise rather than a win, but Keating had found a vocation in organizing and advocacy.
In 1992, she joined the staff at the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, working under founder Dianne Bady. Keating wanted to be “an informed activist,” capable of analyzing government and industry reports. She went back to school and over the next 20 years, she educated and organized citizens to protect their communities.
“The thing about West Virginia is, for a hundred-some years people here, because of the dominance of the coal industry, have had the misconception that they’re not smart enough to take care of their own problems” Keating said. They think “you need some knight on a white horse to come in to save you. That [attitude] works well for the coal industry.” As she sees it, her role and that of the coalition is to provide “an avenue for people to develop their own leadership” and to provide them with the resources to organize against polluters in their own backyards.
Her tips for community organizing:
- Bring in people early on, especially unlikely allies who have a clear stake in the issue.
- Begin with a good understanding of what all parties need.
- Communicate frequently and set protocols for decision making.
Keating and the Ohio Valley coalition have won some major battles:
They defeated a proposal for a new paper mill north of Huntington, when even other environmental groups told them “it was a done deal.” OVEC said, “it’s not done until it’s done.” They fought the mill for five years and built a coalition including, labor and faith leaders in the community. Keating was so successful in building a statewide coalition and making the planned construction of the plant a political “hot potato” that eventually the department of environmental protection and the company withdrew all permits previously issued for the construction.
OVEC has also played a major role in stopping the Spruce No. 1 Mine, which would have been the largest mountain top removal site in the state. In this case OVEC and allied groups took the fight to the courts in the first-ever legal case against mountain top removal strip mining. The initial court case in 1999, ruled that the permit issued to the mining company was unlawful, but the company has been appealing ever since. In 2014 the Supreme Court declined to hear the coal industry’s appeal on the EPA’s decision to revoke the mine’s permit to dump waste in local waterways.
These successes were made possible in part due to Keating’s knack for coalition building and courage in the face of tough odds and big business, which makes her one of EWG’s Women of Courage.
