Actress Darryl Hannah, NASA scientist James Hansen and more than two dozen other mountaintop removal mining opponents have been arrested during a protest in southern West Virginia.

State Police said about 30 people were charged Tuesday afternoon after they blocked State Route 3 near a Massey Energy subsidiary's coal processing plant in Boone County.

They were among several hundred protesters who held a rally outside an elementary school that sits about 300 feet away from the plant's coal storage silo.

After the rally, the crowd marched quietly to the plant and attempted to enter the property. They were blocked by several hundred coal miners chanting "Massey."

Hannah, Hansen, former Rep. Ken Hechler and 27 others then sat on the road and were arrested on misdemeanor charges of obstruction and impeding traffic.