and that is water one of the best sources of water anywhere in the world and maybe the best source of fresh water in proximity to one of the world's largest fastest growing populations. you know with all the and all the lawsuits and all the carrying on that goes on in the in the press and you know the vanity fair's and. us news and world reports and all at that where the authors are warning people to believe that that we're absolutely strip in appalachia down to nothing. in order to get the mineral is patently untrue it's patently untrue when you look around at the forest and they don't and so we have a recent environmental impact statement from the e.p.a. estimates over eight hundred square miles of mountains have already been destroyed this includes the permanent destruction of over four hundred fifty individual mountain summits across the region the report also indicates the permanent loss of

over twelve hundred miles of mountain streams although federal regulations for mine reclamation require that mountaintop removal sites be returned to their original contour these mines are routinely granted waivers mined areas are typically graded and then hydro seeded with less bodies or grass which clings to the compacted shale and rock that now makes up the topsoil nature builds soil for free but she creates the soil very slowly and so you're talking about thousands of years to go from something like a rock mass that has essentially no soil just a very thin covering up to generate a few centimeters of soil you're talking about hundreds to thousands and tens of thousands of years continuing at its present rate the projected loss from mountaintop removal mining is one point four million acres in the next decade an area equal in size to the state of delaware. by the summer of two thousand and six ed wiley has formulated a new plan for pennies

a promise. our government or a local school board state school board will do it in a way it shows and you know and parents and grandparents it's up to you to get this job for the kids you know we're going to money for school one warrior another. like we are going to school in our community and. it's it's showing that our government should come to this simply can't get nothing done for children . if. we're going last week charleston west virginia the worst do you see you all know this is the rise awareness and raise money for new schools and it also opens a lot of doors of applying to chapman in our communities as far as mountain top

removal what it's doing toes in in in the mining industry to our communities this is a perfectly viable one what it's actually doing to our children the governor made us tightening our kids our future by our tomorrow he should die almost up and for our just march fourth don't have them are. political. burning of coal is for over a century has been one of the most deadly things that and humans have done it through the air around them even after one hundred years of burning coal and after one hundred years of so-called improvement of air quality according to the american lung association twenty four thousand people a year still die prematurely from air pollution from coal plants in the united states almost forty percent of the carbon dioxide emissions come from coal one of the things that has to happen. is that the politicians the leaders of the

administration as well as congress state legislators and administrations in the states all those leaders have got to finally say ok we want to call in the two thousand election and west virginia was widely credited with giving president bush the margin he needed to take the oval office was the first time the west virginia had gone republican in something like seventy years and guess what's going to happen come november we're going to carry the state of west virginia thank the coldest it was widely credited for giving bush west virginia so it was no secret that he had a a large debt to pay to the coal industry and they made sure he paid it through out mine safety throughout the rollback of regulations on dirty power plants through a variety of places he essentially stocked all the regulatory agencies with with former coal industry lobbyists or executives by two thousand and one the bush

administration made a flight wording changing the clean water act designating waste as bill this wording change cleared the way for the expansion of mountaintop removal mining throughout southern appalachians. on january twenty second of two thousand and two president bush returned to west virginia it is such a wonderful day for us and for west virginia to host a special me with those with a special bond to our state please and gentlemen the president of the united states i'm. we can do a better job in america one of these days we're going to be driving you know automobiles that are fueled differently and that's going to exciting times for america and raises new technologies coming down and we can encourage those technologies so conservation. take a logical development got to be an integral part of energy. folks we need more

supply you know workers welcome back here in the back and he said i'm real repairing a machine that digs for go we need to use coal we got a lot of it and we need to make sure that we. wait around. for the past twenty years larry gibson and his family have been fighting to preserve their ancestral home place on kafer down outside charleston west virginia and when i met with a call come into my property here me and my family members and they tell me that we don't give a damn about people who carry cholera we don't give a damn about the people on top of that mountain all we care about is profit we're making and it was the dollar it was our body and the top line no we were playing there and it is a vice president cultural production and using kids from massey coal one thousand nine hundred three told me this gibson created the stanley heirs foundation

refusing to sell his family's fifty plus acres to coal companies before mountaintop removal began his family cemetery was surrounded by mountain ridges today the family cemetery looks out on reclaimed mountaintop removal sites eighteen years ago when i came back and it took me four years of trim out family cemetery and if one thousand nine hundred ninety eight and now on the third arrest in eighteen and all when i started this i couldn't get to people through this and now even my own family. and i don't know about turn the corner how press the knob on a.o.l. that was there was before the snowy there in my own mind. the lord is. the young of the day were never seen you were i've seen the young as of the day you were never seen the mountains the earth. no limits no boundaries for you to roam

gibson uses the land a cave heard mountain to educate the public about the effects of mountaintop removal one of the biggest questions people asked me if i had a picture of the mountain before was destroyed. here paper no why should you take a picture of a mountain for it's going to be here forever. day by day the seventy five hundred acres of active mountaintop removal mine continue to encircle his property. another family cemetery sits across the ridge on the active mine site although regulations require that family members have access to these cemeteries requests are often not he's lee granted. on memorial day of two thousand and six keeps in a group of supporters make a trip to the cemetery they want a day we're going to go on the mine site at the cemetery over there and we get to how lord around and different things going on and i still to me a safe the whole idea would be shown in public health forty ordered to get to cold

even into a graveyard. after filling out a den of occasion and release forms the group is permitted to enter the mine site in a one and a half mile hike to the family cemetery. sleet i. didn't mention having to sign a release to go visit my family. i did switch. the first waterhole i risk one man in my life was up then how i. their water hole is not their normal guys they've been six seven hundred foot high wall they're now. my mama give me birth you know in the light. well. you can get to the cemetery through their color as your round. they used to be

a road over here. for you one right here. over here is another one. one i hear. your people are taking part in history this land december third been here for two hundred seventy years and never had this many people on it in the last hundred fifty years and i stand on top of come through here they were and so in general kind the sense we got a minister here i'll tell you what if they same time i. and these people flame beneath these graves the first time when julian come here four years ago we had kate's going to have bates on him they're no longer here if they didn't say that we came and got him. and it's not the case and the words are too much down going to say alan johnson want to say is we're just not been heard here for alone long long

time in mid august of two thousand and six the west virginia department of environmental protection revoked a permit to massey energy to expand its plant in marsh fork elementary by building a second coal silo the d.p.p. determined that the second coal silo was placed outside the permitted boundary of three hundred feet from the school after maps of the preparation plant were found to be inaccurate. we're. going to. go. out.

and up to the plate. from our flight. tomorrow. and i will and i will buy an hour. to get something done for. after the. hour was going to. look. at how. how. how. how.

well you know. as many as i have along the way that a lot of folks shows. we've raised a little money for the new school when they. come here and hopefully. sandberg and i feel that we have conflict all three of them and i believe this fall for a lot of doors for a lot of people on this issue note is very important for me to walk on march fourteenth two thousand and seven the state board of surface mining overturned a west virginia department of environmental protections ruling that denied massey energy a permit to build a second coal silo behind the school this decision cleared the way for the expansion of massey energy's coal processing facility two days later

a coalition of citizen conservation groups including mountain just a summer activists returned to west virginia governor joe manchin is office. you. are or who. are you. and nailed first three years for the rights of those children that i see it's raining how sad right now are saying that will tire of us flood stay and serve it. does that mean anything to you we prayed for you all for three years in a superman need to know a little of the people in these capital to be held accountable for. you know what i want to ask you are you know what i'm going to do back to back corner we need to

clear this way because people are going to get back in for her. i'm sure more her clearly her. because we were here in new school that for a while you're broke your own playing here i'm telling you we are not budging there's more coming god. whisper around my ear get this right now what they're offering their bill will. be a great morning made in a whisper in the air why is there we want results today we want our kids here's a new. chair. why does our kids a dare. for girls day in the coal fields.

they're on the wrong side of the damned. we are the cradle that bring their money out that now the old farmer where you could be took care of her children are children. before the state get old an issue such as whether school should be a new school should be built a decision post first be made at the local. currency the local school board with the decision on a new school that more or before i go to the people of raleigh. so they can determine the phone from themselves so i'm going to join. now or could have hope that the. earth movers. are. here. if you. can't because you.

may say. people. are stored here who. are putting our. money.

i.

move. move. move move move. move. move. move move move. move move move move move be an. old move.

to. move. houses parking cars appliances is so near until they come to visit you. do you think the property bought on credit really

belongs to you. dependent on. wealthy british. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds a report. observe

nature and discover its beauty. communicate with the wild and. test yourself and become free. see what nature can give you on aunty. in moscow and she's available in. which colson royal marriage.

pro bowls encircled the. holiday inn ski patrol the really emotional the meridian country club so boring sure to find this piece of the first. swiss or told close knit hold. a full boutique hotel. as moscow breeze freely for the first time in weeks hundreds of wildfires continue to rage across russia join me and use them now way that might just. be a budding desire to help hundreds from russia and abroad who risk their lives to quell the flames he talks with a retired british firefighter ready to assist stop the rushing to. the u.s. troop surge in afghanistan coincides with civilian casualties rising by

a third this according to a u.n. report outlining a bloody first haul of two thousand and seven. worldwide news around the clock this is our t.v. life from moscow welcome to the program moscow is breathing more freely after overnight rain washed away much of the suffocating small which has been tormenting the russian capital for days emergency services say the situation is easing but hundreds of blazes continue to rage across the country artie's and he said now is in the badly hit region of resign that's about two hundred kilometers southeast of moscow. well we've been trying to show you how much destruction these fires have caused across russia but where we are much of the forests here are still engulfed we're at the makeshift headquarters of the local emergency services who have been

working around the clock day and night here for three weeks trying to contain these blazes and they don't look like there's any sign of letting up the situation here is very critical and in fact that's why on tuesday prime minister vladimir putin chose to come to resign region to get his hands dirty and do what he can and give some time to help try to contain the blazes there is a little bit of optimism in the air there is rain in the forecast we did feel a couple of drops this morning so mergence the workers here are certainly hoping that this might be the beginning of the end obviously all the ministries and authorities are trying to do the best they can to contain the blazes but ordinary people are stepping in and trying to help as well many volunteers have stepped up just ordinary people in ordinary clothes with these blazes of obviously it's quite dangerous those who can't come out and physically help fight the fires are doing the best they can from afar to help those who have lost everything and just to sort

of reconnaissance mission for me they're loaded my car up with everything they could i'm going to seek out families in need and unload this aid wherever i find them what the people brought today that is valuable aid we've only got one small bag of things that we could use we already have enough things we need now medicines wood to milk and canned meat and not just russians are trying to help people from around the world have been writing sending stuff sending their condolences about this crisis in fact archies laura emmett in the u.k. went to meet a former fireman who wants to come to russia and step in this is a man who. knows no national borders a retired firefighter daniel coleus all the reports of the florist blazes raging in russia and felt compelled to offer his help so he wrote to prime minister putin. i want to offer to volunteer to assist in firefighting operations and when the.