in pennsylvania, 3 adjoining couounties arare the hot spot oa rare cancer. in juliette, georgia, radioactive water flows from the tap. these problems may seem unrelated, but with a closer look, these two communities share a common denominator--coal ash, and lots of it. the discovery ofof coal in the

united states dramatically shaped our energy future. today, there is no greater source of power than coal combustion. it's responsnsible r nearly 4 40% of our electricity. but burning coal generates waste. it's called coal ash, and every year in the u.s., 130 million tons of it is created. >> it's thehe largest industrial waste stream in america. you could fill the boxcars of a freight train that would stretch from new york city to melbourne, australia, with the coal ash that's generated every year in this country. >> the ash contains toxic metals. lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium, others. . and it even s radioactive substances. >> it's these pollutants, many of them known to cause cancer, that have people worried. and the big question is, where are all ththese toxins ending u?

>> there's fly ash and coal dust... we'll go on the front porch and do the same thing. >> you can see as you look up there the fresh ash. it's like an orangish color. when it's windy, it can get into their homes, it can get into their cars, and god forbid they're walking across the street or whatever, it actually gets into their lungs. >> in n the unitited statetes, e are ovever 500 coal-fired power plants. and untntil recently, the dangers of coal ash have largely beenen hidden from publc view. this is one of the largest

coal-fired power facilities in the country. called plant scherer, it's located in juliette, georgia, and is majority owned by georgia power. each year it produces 3 1/2 million kilowatts of electricity. generating that power requires a lot of coalal. over 1,200 tons of coal are burned every hour at plant scherer, and in 2010, that resulted in 2,200 tons of coal ash. and it's all dumped into a 750-acre e unlined pond, meaning nothing prevents toxins from entering the groundwater. >> they built this plant a an aa where ththere's no public water access. eveveryone within a 5-me radius and maybe e even further, drinking g on private welell wa. >> that includes donna and phil welch. when theyey built their home n 2001, they thoughght they were moving into an ideal countryside h home. >> and we were so excited about

moving to the country. um, fresh air, you know, kind of john denver-ish generation that we were from. and we were excited about bringing our children too the country. you know, building the home of our d dreams. >> insteadad, like others in juliette, they got sick. >> several years after we moved in, i started developing some numbness in my feet. first in one foot, and then it just kept getting worse. and it just realllly was concningng. i uldd lose my balance. then, i had d a stomachahache fr 3 weeks, really,y, really bad.d. i had been to the dococtor, hehe drew blood, and he called e at wowork and said, your liver s almost in failure. he said, i've never seen liver enzymes as high asas yours are.e. >> donna isn't the only one with severe health issues. mark goolsby, who once worked at the plant, doesn't believe it's safafe to live here. >> there's been 12 people on this road alone die with different kinds of cancer.

my mother's probably a mile or less from the plant. my mother stays chronicalally il with h sinus infections. there's other familieses on this particular road, they have neurological problems, and all of this is documented through the local doctors. >> there was one article in our macon paper about a lady that lives maybe 2 miles from here. her husband had passed away, and he had had a rare form of cancer. before he dieied, she hd both their hair tested, andnd it came up very high in some heavy mmetal elements. a and so she hd her water tested. we thought surely that's not our problem, but we might as well have it tested. >> donna sent her water here, to the university of f georgia's water testing facility. using sophisticated instruments, technicians like jake mower are able to determine what elements are present in a watetr sasample.

>> donna welch and i have spoken many times. she had a--a very elevated amount of uranium in her well water. she also had radon in her water and radon in her home air. so her family was exposed to quite a bit of environmental toxicity uranium will break down to radon, radium. they are classified as carcinogens. i think it would bebe very interesesting to find out exacty what the source of the uranium contamination is, largrgely because her case was a little severe. i think it's a little unusual. >> now donna has no safe well water coming to her home and must rely on bottled water for everyday needs. >> you can imagine how many i go thrhrough and j just the, um, you u know, , not being able tot have the simple convenience of running watater in your homome that's--that's safe. so it's a-- it's a chore.

>> the story isn't much different in one tri-county area of pennsylvania. instead d of one coal-fired powr plant, there are 6. unlike plant scherer, which burns pure coal, these plants are burning coal waste left over by previous mining. coal waste, also called culm, can now be burned to generate power. but there are some downsides. not only is coal waste less efficient than regular coal, it also has higher concentrations of heavy metals. >> matter doesn't disappear. metals don't just disappear. ththey can't. . and so when youn waste coal, those metals, like lead and arsenic and cadmium, are left more concentrated than ever in the waste coal ash. 9- to 10 million tons of coal ash are dumped every year in pennsylvania. and a lot of it is happening right here in schhuylkill county and

surrounding counties. >> john kolbush, a local resident and survivor of leukemia, has coal ash being dumped just minutes from his house. here at the northeastern power company in mcadoo, coal ash is trucked from the plant straight through the heart of town to an old mine site for dumping, bringing toxic coal ash ever closer to people. >> when--when the trucks are leaving and when they're fully loaded, the ashes is blowing out of the vehicles. and when they come through town here, empty, they don't have the tarps on, the ash just blows. if you see some of the houses, the sidings on the houses with the thick accumulation of soot and ash. a year and half ago, we came through there, and it was a

really windy day, it was like a smog going through it. . none of the ash was covered and it's just--it was actuaually like driving through a fog. and it's just a--it's a crime. there's the one that we just followed down the roroad. he's dumping and you can see the ash there. this pit was approximately 300 feet deep. it's all filled with ashes. they run probably two dozen trucks continuous all day long, 6 days a week. >> tons of coal ash are dumped legally in unlined pits every year, even though the u.s. environmental protection agency acknowledges coal ash can cause serious health effects. coal ash is also being used in creating

products like roofing material, bricks, and concrete. the epa calls this "beneficial use," and members of the coal industry claim reusing coal ash provides an environmental benefit. >> there are a wide variety of things we can use coal ash for, rarather than throwow it away.. the most prominent uses are, uh, using coal fly ash in concrete. every ton of fly ash we put into coconcrete is a ton o of cementt doesn't need to be made, and not making that ton of cement has saved over 11 million tons of co2 emissions last year alone. used p properly, coal ash is a safe material for beneficial usese. the levels of metals in coal ash are comparable to the levels of metals in n the dirt and rocks in yourur backyard. we believe the best solution to coal ash disposal problems is to quit throwing it away. in parts of ththe country, these historic coal mines have a tremendous problem with acid mine drainage. you'veve seen n the oranange-cod

creeks and those kind of things. coal ash can actually be u used, uh, to modify the ph in those settings and relieve that acid mine drainage. so that's an examplple where you actuallyly t to put the cocoal ash in contact with the water because e it's-- it improves ththe water quality by doing that. >> but local people in pennsylvania disagree. >> this is actually the opening from the gilberton mineshaft. they have put 1 16 million tons of fly ash into the beaty mining and the owen gowen site to control acid mine drainage. and this is what's coming out from underneath them. and you can see on the rocks up there in the corner, you can see acid mine drainage. you can see the iron pyrite. right there's the ash, all the way back there. wow.

there's no liner. there's no nothing. it's just poured on the ground. underneath most of these sites, you have mine pools. there's more chemicals in there prprobably thahan you'd have i e avererage chemicalal factory. ad it's all leachingng into ththe ground to whatever mine p pool is undederneath, tgod knowsws whose water supply where. >> we're talking about a quarter of a million people live here. now, people aren't drinking all that t mine pooool water. they'e drinking reservoir water that the mine pool helps feed. the water that flows into those reservoirs comes from groundwater and from mine pools and from springs that come out of the sides of mountains. and the danger is if you contaminate too many of those sources, then you have a health threaeat. >> jusust as in juliliette, geo, people hehere are also gettining sick. if you type in hazleton, it does c come up cancer capital of pennsylylvania. >> this is ground zero for the polycythemia vera cancer investigation. >> called pv for short,

polycythemia vera is a rare form of blood cancer in most of the u.s. but here, there's a confirmed cluster of pv cases. >> in 2004, we learned that there were 67 diagnosed cases of polycythemia vera, which ultimately led to the--to the cconfirmation n of a cancer cluster. since then, 13130 cases of polycythemia vera have been reported to the pa cancer registry. >> pepeople with h pv, like d da trtrently anand merle wertrtman, suffer from an overproduction of red blood cells. >> so the blood gets very thick, and it can cause, you know, blockages to smaller blood vessels that feed d vital organs of our body. tissue dea c can occur anywhere in n the body. it can occur in theieir brain, it can occur in their toe, it can occur in their liver.r. we've seen patients where they've developed infarctions to their feet, where they've had to o have toes amputated. they have infarctions to theieir liver. they can have an infarction to their heart, much like a heart attack.

>> the way it works on you, you're so exhausted and tired, you have chronic pain everywhere. i i have chronic fatigue. headacheses, terrible. it affects your vision. i'll just wake up and hahave pas in my legs and my hands and my feet. it's vascular, so it goes through every part, every vein on your body, you're having a lot of pain, every direction. yoyou don't knknow wherere to pt yourself. >> for merle, who has been a sports fanatic all his life, pv has really changed his once active lifestyle. >> these are--some of these are pete rose. he's my favorite. steve carlton. he's a... sometimes i get moodody and miserable, but i don't think i was always that way. they give me a phlebotomy. uh, they stick a 12-gauge needle in your arm and they draw all the blood out of you. usually 26 ounces they take out. when i first got this, it was, uh, i was getting it twice a month, every two weeks.

>> in the 22-square mile polycythemia vera research cluster area, uh, there's a number of environmental assaults. at least 6 known super-r-fund sites, 6 waste coal generators, and over 23 unlined waste coal ash pits, all surrounding our community's public water supplies and private well users. from a scientific perspective, it's known that polycythemia vera is an acquiuired cancer, meaning ththat it's lilikely ofe environment. you're not born with it. so now we're looking at this very complex mystery of the environment and its potential link in causing p. vera. >> the search for answers began here, at the now silent home of betty and lester kester. >> whatat is happening here is t beautiful. it's not a pretty story. as beautiful as my parents' life was, and as many wonderful things they had in it,

the e p. vera, it t really affed their life in a dramatic way. both passed away in 2008. the p. vera took their lives within about 5 years from the time that t they were diagnosed with it. >> ground zero for polycythemia vera in ththe free world, or in the world in n general, was bety and lester kester. when betty kester died, she had decided to donate her body to science for the invnvestigation. >> her body tissues eventually found their way here to dr. ronald hoffman's lab in mt. sinai hospital in new york city. he has spent nearly 40 years s studying pv. >> there were too many patients with polycythehemia vera in tha- in thatat area than one could account for. whether the environment or toxins in the enenvironmenent lead t to an ind risk of polycythemia vera is unknown. thatat's really an area of research anand also

speculation. the problem is that there are multiple toxic compounds that are in the ground and also in the air in this area, and to prove a one-to-one relationship is going to be very, very tougugh. in this area, there were a lot of supeper-fund sites and coal mines. so, you know, they weren't here, they weren't there. they were here. and that was the concern. and that's the concern in my mind toto this day. it's a question mark. i don't have the answer to this. i'm not a statistician, but intuitively it would seem to me more than chance that--that this would occur. >> while science continues to gather evidence, some people believe that politics and profit are outweighing the need to protect public health. >> whether it's a democratic

administration or a republican administraration, coal talks. >> government agencies, in my opinion, have m more been apt to represent the best interests of the polluters. they seem to have rights more so than what people do. >> georgia power, i think, is very effective in influencing, if not contntrolling, w what gs voted d on. they get what t they want. i'm trying to figure out if they ever don't get what they want. >> there's no monitoring systems, there's no liner systems. there's a whole litany of things that just are absent, uh, from how we conduct our environmental business. >> in pennsylvania, two agencies, the state department of environmental protection and the federal agency for toxic substances and disease registry are obligated to protect public health. but they have both drawn criticism for not adequately addressing the contamination problem. >> the monitoring is overseen by the department o of environmental protection.

we have one site where a public water supply has been contntaminated with arsenic. the epepa's toxic release inventory indicates that high levels of arsenic was found in much of the ash that was dumped at this site. all right? so, you know, simply from the standpoint of the waste stream, the quality of the waste stream and what has happened to the public water supply, indicates an adequate study should have been done to determine if ththee is a connection between the disposal site and the well. this never did occccur. the public have been simply brushed off and told, don't worry, trust us. you are adequately protected. but once again, this is being done without any adequate data to give to the public. and consequently the public is saying, should we trust the people that are supposed to protect us? >> for the last 20 years, these federal and state agencies, the same ones that have been investigatating this problem, he

been promoting this process of dumping the coal ash without any safeguards. for them to now, uh, admit that they think that the coal ash is causing these cancers would be to admit that they caused this whole e problem in the first place. >> while families wait for answers, toxic ash continues to pile up. back in georgia, people aren't just frustrated about poor regulation, they're claiming that georgia power is trying to hide the problem. georgrgia powerer will tetell ye 7750-acre unlined pond poses no threat to local r residents. but behind this good-neighbor disguise, some companyny actions suggest that they know there is a problelem. in the lastst deca, georgia power r bought several homes from residents witith particularly poor health. >> my aunt, she was bought out last july. she had been out here since 1976. and her concrete driveway starting turning black.

her brick started to turning. she would go out in the yard and have severe nosebleeds. then she developed breast cancer.r. when my aunt's house s purchased, they hired a contractor to come in. they filled the well, they filled the septic tank, tore her house down, tore up the concrete driveway, planted pine trees, like there's nothin' ever been there. put up a fence and d posd signs. but we feel kind of like david going up against goliath, you know. it's, uh, to me, to buy out one person on this road that complained about it, go 5 miles down the road, buy out another family, but yet leave people close to the plant that's in harm's way, i say, uh, to have to breathe in this coal dust and this fly ash, they're trying to hide something. and i think georgia power has known all along that therere's been a problem. >> mark isn't the only one who shares that opinion. local lawyer brian adams, who grew up near the plant, now represents over 100 juliette residents who are suing the

plant for environmental contamination. >> there have been deaths that we attribute that are related to the toxins that are coming from thehe plant. . linking everything together is certainly one of the scientific issues that we're working on, but we-- wewe know that there we b bad thinings, bad contaminants that are coming from the plant that are getting to the people in the community that are causing health problems. we do have liver cancer, kidneyey cancer, stomach cancer, all that we are aafraid is attributed to the cocontaminatioions. i think k as people realize that maybe geororgia power has s known thtt some of this stuff is not good and not good for the area, a and they never said anything, instead encouraraged people to e in that t area, that's where the anger really stararts to get in, because, again, they feel like they've been lied to.. the thing is, georgia power does do meme goo thihings for ththe community. thehey help people in the community, they give back, they give to good causes. a lot of f people in that ccommunity, they do wowork ther. but it's in part to cover up these callous and cruel things that t they know they've done.

they've knonow this stuff is goa cause problems, and it appears that they don't really care. a lot of our claims are based on some common law claims that say, look, you can't do something and harm your neighbor. and thatat's what they're doing. they're harming their neieighbor. and that is a violation of the law. >> as litigation in georgia slowly plays out, coal ash dumps across the u.s. continue to b be regululated at the state level, resulting in a patchwork of standards. many states, like georgia and pennsnsylvania, exet coal ash from m hazardous waste regulation. at the federal level, , debate over coal ash regulation has dragggged on for decades. and despite recent coal ash spills in north carolina, coal ash has yet to receive federal regulation. >> garbage disposal and trash is probably more regulated than coal ash is. without any question, we need a national regulation to

establish a bar that every state has to meeeet. and this is how we're going to protect the public. >> the government has been sued to demand that they d do somethg ababout thisis. the problem is t the power companies s have known since the seventities and proby longer than that that this coal ash is such a mamassive, huge amount of waste that they don't know what to do with. they have fought for yeyears and years and years to make sure that the regulations don't make i it difficult for them to get rid of this stuff. >> the message for the commumunities are you have to defend yourself anand know that your government that you are financining is not adequatately defending your heaealth, safety, and welflfare, nor your rights o clean air, clean land, and clean water. >> the people who live around coal ash dump sites believe they are being shrugged off as collateral damage, by both corporarate intererests and slolow-moving government agenci. more than anyone, they know what's at stake. >> i've lived 55 years. and i know that it's a touough

economy and people have to make tough decisions. um, i do think that powower and moneynd g gre is a a big--is a a big part o o. >> i do believe that we need energy. i do believe that we-- i'm not against c coal. the thig that i would like to see is, , , not shutting the company down or anything like that. i just do not want these contaminants seeping into the underground waterer. >> if we could just let people have clean w water and clean air to breathe. and stst get back k to the busisiness of living and nonot worried d about dydying. >> burning coal to generate power isn't going away anytime soon. but there is a changing climate in the energy sector. >> the way we produce power in tthis country is c changing,g, t will continue to chanange. at te end of the day, i think we're all realizing that you cannot make a coal plant as safe as you can make other energy

producuction. >> and while we rely heavily on coal now, that does not excuse the coal inindustry from its obligation to operate safely. that, too, is a cost of doing business.

[animals chattering] ausubel: ok. on to the program. um, the quest to shift our civilization onto an equitable and life-affirirming path will take generations. as chief oren lyons of the haudenonosaunee 6 nations--iroquois 6 nations--has often counseleled s here at bioneeeers, "raise upp your leadersrs." young peoplplee always at the forefront of social change movements, bringing vitalilizing creatativ, innovation, and legs. morere thn