fires and drought prompting a jump in global grain prices mean why india loses tons of surplus crops to poor storage as people of the country go hungry. and it is big comeback the terrorist group is reportedly on a recruiting spree spurred on by the planned u.s. troop withdrawal from iraq. coming up next we'll look at how mountaintop removal mining has affected local communities and critics say become one of the greatest environmental disasters in u.s. history stay with us for that here on r.t. . on the day of this interview the small creek less than one mile from their home flows black and i it's not normal that's come from alabama coal mines or it's come from sorry pot. and i don't know. what to expect. i'll call it. maybe a few more years. if i'm not helpless went down tremendously.

and i don't ever look to be helpful as i don't have all of the signs that bankers in vein of i can do to help me. that are only thing i want now i want a good moral i want them to quit pump and are quitting jade and whatever they're doing i want them to quit that. and. i'll mop the rebated. for the last twenty years. and all. you can't make it without good water. from the moody. blues. currently there are over one hundred forty billion gallons of coal slurry contained in more than one hundred pound mints in west virginia alone the total quantity of coal slurry in

the rest of southern appalachians is not. on december twenty second two thousand and eight a coal ash impoundment at the tennessee valley authorities kingston fossil plant failed when an earthen dike broke spilling over one point one billion gallons of coal ash sludge over three hundred acres. coal ash sludge has waste created from the burning of coal at the kingston coal plant it is believed to contain toxic compounds including arsenic and mercury. the tennessee valley authority estimates the cost of the cleanup over eight hundred twenty five million dollars this spill is ten times larger than the exxon valdez spill in alaska and is believed to be america's largest environmental disaster to date with throwing away the next generation's most valuable resource and that is water and 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 in the u.s. news and world reports and all at that where the authors are warning people to believe that they were 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 forested mountains that 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 wavers 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 and 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 for the kids you know we're going to money for schools one way or another. like we are going to school in our community and. it's it's showing that our government has come to this simply can't get nothing done for children to. be. if. we're going watch these trials on west virginia the worst we do you see you all know this is the rise awareness and raise money for new school it also opens a lot of doors of the blank to chapman in our communities as far as mountaintop

removal what it's doing to those 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 dykeman our kids our future by our to morrow he should die almost up and for our jihad on march fourth don't have them all. live at least. 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. 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 callers he was widely credited for giving bush west virginia so it's no secret that he had 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 stalked all the regulatory agencies with with former coal industry lobbyists or executives by two thousand and one the bush administration made a swipe 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 ladies 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 automobiles that are fueled differently. and that's going to be exciting times for america and which is 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 gold 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 k. for down outside charleston west virginia and when i met with the coal company to fight on 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 are making and it was the dollar it was our body and the. know we were playing there and it is a vice president cultural production and using kids from massey coal one thousand nine hundred three tell 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 a trim up families to metairie and in one thousand nine hundred ninety to now own the clearest photo in a team of gold when i started this i couldn't get to people to listen now even my own family. now you know about turning the corner how presta the knob on a or that was there was before the snowy there in my own mind. or just. the young kids of the day were never seen you would have seen the young as of the day were never seen the mountains the earth. no limits no boundaries for you could roam. gibson uses the land of capered 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 paperno 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 ships 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 long around and different things going on and the ice destroy me a safety. zone and probably count forty or go 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 and just sign a release to go visit my family to be. heard it's with you i was. the first waterhole i risk one man in my life was up that's how i. the water not there now we've got six seven hundred foot. my mama give me birth. in the light. well. you can get to the cemetery through there are going to go round. there used to be

a road over here. for one right here. over to the other wanted. one i hear. your people are taking part in history is playing the cemetery been here for two hundred seventy years never had as many people on it in the last hundred fifty years and ice time on top of come through here the wooden sword journalism kind. the superguy minister here i will tell you are a half a cent on my. show and these people for a rainy fifth graders the first time in julian come here four years ago we had kate's phones and had baits on him they're no longer here if they're even in saying that we came and got him. and not the case and in order to down is going to say on johnson our side is or has not been heard here for

a lone 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 and marsh fork elementary by building a second coal silo the d.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 an accurate. nobody would stand that. nobody will stand up to the street. i stand up for my

grandmother fly i stand up two hundred forty two of those lowlife i represent don't feel remorse for elementary and i will stay and and i will buy and i will do whatever it takes to get something done for those children that they issues out who are no more i'll hold on to that it. was such. an. when i was. little in the. only. little league.

but if you see. well you know what i couldn't talk to as many folks i have along the way that a lot of folks shows for revenge a kind a lot of folks on the issue we've raised a little money for the new school only issue in one of our goals was to come here and hopefully talk and make the sandberg and off field we have conflict all three of them and leave us going for a lot of doors for a lot of people on this issue you know is very important for me to walk on march fourteenth two thousand and seven the state board of surface mining overturned the 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. for her. frank. god. and neil. first three years for the rights of those children that i see it's raising. right now are saying tell us mugs day i'm sorry. does that mean anything to you we preach you know for three years in a soup never to marry the people in these camps used to be accountable for that but what i want to ask you. i'm going to back to the back corner we need to clear this

way because people are going to get back to work or. more work. you have to get a new school that's the one you're broke you're a fight here i'm telling you we're not budging there's more coming. your. way around my your kids this might yet you know what they're offering their field. markedly more made in a whisper in the air while he's trying to worry wart result the day we want our kids to. share. wired to our kids a day or. forgo day in their code for you.

they're on the wrong side of the ban on. you know we are the cradle that bring their money out that. former where you could be took care of her bills our children. for the state a good job in this you such as whether school should be the new school should be built a decision must first be made at the local level. i've heard the low. the school board with the decision on a new school had marched forward before a vote of the people of raleigh. so they can determine the final outcome from sales so i'm. now all i could i hope that corby. earthmovers be heard. if. you. can hear those he had read and i know you say.

people. here certainly care who. write that but i think. i. was. i. was. i. was.

i. was. her sleep problems.

if. you.

in. a.

culture is that so much of a mummy is going to be made in a lot of the plane carrying out looking hard realities convenience lines the world will be watching closely the u.s. senate as it debates new climate change.

for the full story we've got it from. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. kill kill. kill

. it.

they faced this is not a prohibition but warned. that we should see everybody you should disapprove retreat because they have no idea about the hardships to face. they wanted. to do something for it in the army to life for them to use the other is the most precious thing in the world. uses of self-sacrifice and heroism with those who understand it fully but you have to live a. real life stories from will. be true nine hundred forty five gold dot com. in the czech republic he's available in a hotel and science central. most of them will stop by you to

him a taste in bosnia and herzegovina available in. the children of each. cubic . foot you know. times. in serbia multis available in moscow and hyatt regency. toxic smoke that's blanketing moscow finally lifts but the record heat wave is showing no signs of relenting hundreds of wildfires still burning to western and central russia with flames now reaching areas contaminated by the sheer noble nuclear disaster officials say not to panic as the pollution remains deep in the soil offers of help and condolences have poured in from around the world. as russia struggles with a fire and drought.