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 been pouring in from around the world. as russia struggles with the fire and drought the country's grain export has been temporarily halted to secure domestic needs there's fears that more crops could be lost of the heat and flames prompting global grain prices to start to skyrocket meanwhile millions in india are going hungry well stocks rot in temporary storage. and maybe making a comeback in iraq by attracting former u.s. sympathizers with the promise of high wages and now believed to be targeting a sunni group that aligned itself with coalition forces during the two thousand and three conflict militia leaders say it is capitalizing on the u.s. troop withdrawal and continuing political instability there. next we take a look at how mountaintop removal mining has affected local communities and critics

say become one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in u.s. history that's coming your way next on r.t. . leg lucky a leg loose places good. sled slowly i am led to a sled. a. long.

pole. eagle leg long mum and leg leg . most of the carbon that we buy from across to the earth is millions of years old coal particularly interesting because per unit of energy generated coal actually it may be the cheapest fuel but it also releases the most carbon to be with her as carbon dioxide beginning in earnest with the development of the steam engine in the late seventeen early eighteen hundreds here with the begin to name and extract

fossil carbon from the earth's crust coal oil natural gas even in the absence of humans over some time period it would be uplifted and subject to erosion and removal might return to the us here but those rates are tiny compared to the ability of humans to go out with large machines to deliver a large quantities of this material to the surface of the earth where it is burned and it would be useful generation of energy we have larger quitman that was introduced on surface mans about twenty five years ago here in washington which accounted for the ability to recover coal seams that heretofore been unmanageable the use of dragline land manning scenes that were an economic. and even physically impossible. without the use of that. many people twenty five

years ago when the first company said to them bring a bright line they were laughed at and they said there's no way in the world you get a piece of equipment like that on the narrow ridges southern appalachia and and they were determined through engineering ability and persistence to make certain that it worked and and it hands. the man was pleasant. things to.

listen. to the will be. some. easy way. to get to lisa's. mom. and dad. to see her sleep clothes. think these little children i'm sorry little children will be protected this night from treatment or your family can carry. a family do a lot of people on it become real or not we're going to marry the same and again be able to benefit from every car ever either a parent comes from there now plans or there are a number of years to forsake the family our children to destroy your reaction lowered. and such are nearly six months

a place. we're going to take your partner to. sleep. the slum. sleep. it's. never the playground my family's i guess. you need to keep moving larry desperate to meet these communities matt is dismantling the community and. once these lessons are gone there is no more of a life. there is no more west virginia it don't grow back it's not going to come back i mean you know we have a politician get up on t.v. go he said well the reason again saying it's being extinct the deer are in. order to stiles and. that's not the. process

mountaintop removal coal mine is an awesome display of coal extraction engineering it is also quite simple once the site is a den of clear cutting begins next explosives are used to blast away the earth material holes and. then machinery completing massive shovels called dragon lines remove the overburden which is then deposited in adjacent valleys called valley fills mountaintop removal coal mining can bring down the elevation of a peak by hundreds of feet sites are often thousands of acres in size but i believe these are legal action rather than blacksburg and written. in the spring of two thousand and five a group of activists college students and local citizen conservation groups joined together to oppose the widespread increase in mountaintop removal mines throughout southern appalachian training the group called their campaign mountain just

a summer there was going to be kind of this renewal of coal mining in tennessee and some of those mines were going to be you know mountaintop removal mines. you know we were like hey this is you know now we're dealing with this issue too it's not just an issue in kentucky and west virginia like hey let's put something together and kind of up the level of opposition to this issue and let's help make this issue a national issue that everybody has to dealing with. say what they're doing one. since some why is there a divide in our community. i've got nothing against free speech but when you come in here demanded people's jobs and clothes or schools they own and i and all that you lucky don't get hurt. if somebody is in california or north carolina or new york city they're connected to mountaintop removal because they're turning on the lights. their opening strategy was to draw attention to

a school situated close to a mountaintop removal site in marsh fork west virginia. the mine is owned by massey energy america's fourth largest coal producer marsh fork elementary is a very very scary situation they have two point eight billion gallons of co slurry which is why it's toxic it's toxic material it has arsenic. chromium and there's a lot of really really bad chemicals in this sludge there is a lake of the two point eight billion gallons of coast laurie sitting behind this elementary school four hundred yards up on top of a mile. there's two hundred twenty eight kids in the school. the sophistication of engineering that goes into the construction of that is i suspect not duplicated in any other physical structure anywhere in in the world

in one thousand nine hundred two buffalo creek there is this disaster where one of these impoundments basically blew out millions of gallons of this nasty sludge and water went barreling down a small holler and killed one hundred twenty five people destroyed like four thousand houses a thousand cars you know hundreds of people were injured. besides the danger of flooding while you know the residents are concerned about the health effects posed to school children from the cold processing facility located directly behind marsh fork elementary so i say it's three hundred feet away three hundred fifty feet away the neighbor sits directly caused the river and you've got serious problems over you got the magnetite you got the walk you got the ammonia they use the bad. they use diesel fuel in there they mix all this stuff together we've got bad headaches all the time. you got. problems with her and more more down her.

planner for you a lot of kids. are in a lot of people like look all the time it is draining all the time the kids are coming home with blisters and little tiny blisters the size of opinionated all when they're mild. but not everyone shares their concerns in the small community where many residents work for the coal industry that surrounds them if i wasn't comfortable enough i was scared i would not let her go there and she will be in first grade she was in kindergarten last year played on the playground three times a day and more like college close and like i never came home. or you know any thickness and i have manacle records to prove that she has not had anything other than a common cold up like any other child. we. have

been. frustrated that local school and government officials you know action will improve the safety of more work elementary. granddaughter kayla attends marsh for commentary launches the pennies a promise campaign to raise six million dollars to build a new school and so when there. is a. little. it's inside they're going to take your money. and their money to build. the mother that she wanted to build against. because i don't like. to start the pennies or promise campaign wiley and his granddaughter kayla present the governor with over four hundred dollars in pennies even orders never collected .

we'd like to see the governor we have some money to present him. the story of a story. that stacked up kids everywhere how you are doing a good to see you have a young lady here from marsh fork elementary in. the south in. which. case i don't see. people going to start. at the schools some of them are you going to the stuff. and. it's. ok to have a little gable here for you but this is our campaign ok. now we're let me just say you know so far as i know we worked on this some we talked about at the forefront but the school for us or at the school where we at with the local board of education start all over that smack up a whole lot we're not going to get them you took us for north to protect the way

from west we're going to use it women has it's own tell you today ok you know what we're not going to do what we've been doing you put a price on our children here. in our state you put a price this is not an environmental issue this is a little human vein i have tried for two years to work with you on this and i've been ignored and i don't mean to put you in a soft spot here but enough is enough enough it's enough we need to get this took care of your business what these coal companies it is your business your politics this is not about politics we're asking people for money all of this country today is our official announcement of it so it's just it's just in the stages we're going to raise five to ten million dollars it's going to happen we want you to be a part of this we want you to support our efforts we want to help you do a better job and i appreciate i don't mean to be upset and progressive but if this was your child would be well you know that enough you know happens and she's beautiful and say what we should we care about our child. down there in there sure

is probably just a lot of issues and i know you're aware there's intimidation going on there a lot of intimidation teacher spoke out last year now he's been told he better start with you want to going to do it how do everything in my heart that i want to do that that means that i do everything in my god because of that we got to. learn english jeff goodell's book big coal the dirty secret behind america's energy future explores the history and use of coal in america and throughout the world like many americans i didn't even realize that we still burn coal you know i thought coal was something that went out with top hats and corsets i thought that electricity was just something that flowed down from a golden bowl in the sky i never gave any thought to where it came from the idea that coal produces fifty percent of electricity in america never occurred to me so i went down to west virginia and i didn't know what to expect their memory i first knew i was driving outside of charleston and i saw the boom on one of the big drag lines swinging above the hills and i pulled off the road and i hiked up through the

woods to the top of this hill and i got this view down into this strip mine and it was just like hell had opened up before me. the money and the coal mining has always gone to the top and been siphoned out by the the owners essentially whether their corporations are called barons like don blankenship it's a commodity business every penny they have to spend for safety for wages for health care or anything like that is money that they see coming directly out of their pocket and you know the history of coal mining it's very clear on this there's no it's not a subtle thing you know this is an industry that views workers as disposable and views the landscape as disposable and it's all about getting the coal out of the ground as quickly.

tolls there is not in love disco with you bottom yourself. and if you start out into madness you had to have those tools and they didn't let you get them own created company still. for about three presses put it this way lloyd your coke head company stores they hard you lived near kochi if you work for them they did more kitchen some i also store. and one of the others on matters bad they still owed to a company store you could pitch it won't pay him well. he made company money scrip overpriced it wasn't good it was company store as i got an updated script it's worth more today than it was made. right. usually until the you know you could make more to dolls day right here sell to keep track of which to use

middle today killed and check to. give you a handful of these stamp you number of what you got your car loaded with cold somewhere on this car you would i want to check to see and be a mule driver lead times i'd be a go on board back to you norm stay in school he would pull you to cohen here drop it off unhook piecemeal from it come to the phone. right now it really is the loud rock in which you cold who show your life you've got a water tank in a slot. of a little water drip in your career bud. and does a smear of good but it works pretty good. number on all sides. also you know look at the history of our area especially they with big communities now today with scant rings big companies still worth

everything to pay for i mean this company housed all down that river off stuff and set their. our schools are good because there's no money all the stores are or close and nothing's coming back these are people with this cold company in their tie can take an entire week and never put it is all going to go there really west virginia broke in the big go on the road with. five years. top removal site moved into the head waters of the string that runs from a home in the past five years i've been flooded seven times there's been about five acres my property it's washed away into the stream down below where i live. my property has been completely devastated devalued there's no way i could say one

relocate my property it's worth at the mine company had the option of getting in touch with me and letting me know what was coming at me and they did it and they trapped me and my kids have a flooding hollow and basically trashed our lives now when someone does that to you you don't go along with it you have no choice but to go against i go home to it i live in the middle of this walk. because it's ok it's ok that may be only from southern west virginia where is the middle of this hail so am i ask him i am not sun. rome. i don't know nobody nutten i don't own these million jobs i don't own jobs and if i thank god i do their day and roam across appalachians coal fields mining jobs are

vital to local economies my husband has worked with my essay for just eight or nine years and they all just we really appreciate massive that's where we get our money that you know our way of living but traditional deep mining requires more workers than mountaintop removal since nine hundred fifty the total number of mining jobs has steadily decreased from approximately one hundred twenty thousand to less than twenty thousand today over the same period coal production has steadily increased many cofield residents are also concerned about another byproduct of coal production slurry pons. the slurry impalements the way that we dispose of the refuse that comes from the cleaning of coal. which is literally nothing but dirt and rock coming that's what you're separating from the coal so that's what you're disposing of it's not toxic it's not you know as people many

people would like you to believe that there's something only it's the indigenous dirt and rock that is caught up in the coal seam and that natural material includes mercury lead arsenic and a whole suite of heavy metals which as long as they're in that rock you can drink the water because they'll be underground they'll be they will not be exposed to oxygen that if you don't disturb them they will not be brought into solution and you can literally some of the best water we have in west virginia comes right out of a coal seam but when you disturb that rock and start grinding it up into fine particles adding a whole bunch of chemical additives to it to get it to separate the coal from the other inorganic materials then you come up with this which is brew material that you would want any exposure to it all we know almost nothing about it i've got a database now has fourteen samples worldwide of coal slurry that are in the public

domain six of these are from the post martin county you know the the the biggest environmental disaster in the southeastern united states six a apples representing what that material that entered our rivers and streams really is which i find rather posterous three hundred nine million gallons of taking over fifty miles of a major river system a spill bigger than the exxon valdez we took six samples the occurrence that happened in kentucky. was simply one where you had one built over old. underground ones and they gave way in the bottom and that's what happened with the structure itself. domingo county west virginia within sight of massey energy c.e.o. don blankenship home karma leader brown has been battling for clean want to. twenty some years ago. and water turned black and black grey and asked are the hollowness gray men enough has been got up and asked

and asked me what was wrong take a man and he said when he looked at eight said my god he said that's close laurie. we went and looked at fifteen wells. sent samples off to the laboratory got the testing results back and did some analysis on those results and it was pretty compelling that we needed to do more research down there i had never seen water quality is that poor. that's pretty good compared to what it was this morning these documents from the west virginia department of natural resources researched by mountain just to some are volunteers are permits for coal slurry injections that took place in the early one nine hundred eighty s. at the slurry impoundment located approximately two miles above carmelita brown's home this permit shows that over two hundred eight million gallons of slurry was injected in one thousand nine hundred eighty four and nine hundred eighty five

disbursement describes three injections in one thousand nine hundred four into an abandoned underground mind at the rate of six hundred gallons per minute the basis for. injecting. coal slurry and other things other wastes underground as an e.p.a. one thousand nine hundred eighty sed study called underground injection control all that's the oxymoron of the century underground injection control and what control do we have when we inject something on the ground i have no idea where it goes. if i actually aired it was to pull out the moral person reason went bankrupt or whatever all the story pods you know who is responsible for the county we got the paperwork we know the calories are responsible for the cleanup of the floor. nobody wanted to help us nobody want nobody was concerned and it wasn't only made it was oh my neighbors that down this road well the patients i see for all have

significant medical problems that other people don't have. a greater number of people of all timers disease old timers disease memory loss i've seen a great number of people who have numbness and tingling of their arms and legs which indicates a heavy metal. accumulation seen a fair amount of just ill health mannix the numbers on a kidney dialysis another neighbor a man as is has lost a kidney headache had to have a kidney transplant i have problems with my kidneys the timea water exposes them to many types of metals cadmium among others the causes can the damage now several people not necessary has lost babies i have carried them six months and have maybe still more.

wealthy british style. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger or a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser reports.

quite. the toxic smoke that's blanketed in moscow finally lifts but the record heat wave is showing no signs of abating hundreds of wildfires still burning in 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.