first tree removal called clear cut. second explosives are used to blast to go deeper than the gears a. third the remains are removed by machinery. finally easy from wanted soil is deposited in vallecito.

liesl on a. visit every month we give you the future we help you understand how to get there and what tomorrow brings the best in science and technology from across russia and around the world. join us for technology update on our g.

this is r t from moscow these are top stories tonight moscow's again in small news firefighters battled russian rampant wildfires left over three thousand people homeless there is progress being made to emergency services say the area affected by the burning forests has been reduced by two thirds in the past week. and other main stories in the past seven days the ceremony to mark the sixty fifth anniversary of america's atomic attack on the japanese city of nagasaki was attended by over thirty countries but the able most horrific legacy is still being held by its victims today eight hundred thousand people were killed scotian at the end of world war two. just as campaigners claim women convicted of killing their abusive partners in california having their parole hopes dashed by the political ambitions of state governors in the viagra be safe women acted in self-defense after suffering domestic violence. next one of america's biggest ecological

catastrophes but one that you may not have even and what makes it even more shocking is that it's manmade and forcing entire communities to abandon their homes . 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. i don't know. what takes bait. out caught. maybe a few more years. and my health this went down tremendously. and i don't ever look to be healthy as i am one of the side not bankers in vain if i can do to help me. but i only thing i want now i want good morals i want

them to quit pump and are quitting jade and whatever they're doing i want them to quit that. and. it's all mopped rebated. for the last twenty years. it's been hard. you can't make it without good water. salumi. currently there are over one hundred forty billion gallons of coal slurry contained in more than one hundred impoundments in west virginia alone the total quantity of coal slurry in the rest of southern appalachians is. one 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 has meets 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 one of the best sources of water anywhere in the world and maybe the best source of fresh water and 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 in 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 of 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 shot will do it 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 there were the kids you know we're going to money for school one way or another

. like we get a new school built in our community and. it's rich it's showing that our government should come to this and we can't get nothing done for children. we. were told last week charleston west virginia the worst do you see you all know this is the rise awareness and raise money for new school and it also opens a lot of doors of applying to chapman in our communities as far as mountaintop removal what it's doing to those in in in the mining industry to our community this is the perfect guy ample. what it's actually doing to our children the governor made us dykeman our kids our future by our tomorrow he should die almost up and for our kids of mars for don't have them all. over.

burning of coal and 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 mud color in the two thousand election and west virginia was widely credited with giving president bush the margin he needed to take the oval office it 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 coal industry was widely credited for giving bush west virginia so it was 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 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 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 you know automobiles that are fueled differently. and that's going to be exciting times for america and we're just new technologies coming down and we can encourage those technologies so conservation. technological development got to be an integral part of energy folks we need more supply you know work well i can back here in the back and i 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 defied all 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 i would have bought and the. know we were playing there and it is the vice president cultural production in eugene 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 for you to clear my family's cemetery and in ninety nine to now own the crater restful and eighteen goal when i started this i couldn't get to people to listen now even my own family. and i don't know about turned a corner how press the knob on a or that was there was before this no lonely there in my own mind. the lord is. the young of the day were never seen where i've seen the young as of the day were never seen the mountains the earth. no raymond's no boundaries for you to 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 gibson and a group of supporters make a trip to the cemetery i 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. i still do me a safe the whole idea would be shown in public out forty zero goaded 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. water hole is 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 here is another one. one i hear. your people are taking part in history is playing the cemetery been here for

two hundred seventy years and never had as many people on it in the last hundred fifty years and ice time on top of come through here they wouldn't or gentleness or 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 phone who had dates on him they're no longer here if they hadn't been saying that we came and got him. and not the case and in order to reach down gonna say i'm johnson and want to say is we're just not going to hurt here for alone 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 plan were found to be an accurate. live. nobody would stand up. nobody would stand up to the street. i stand up for my grandmother fly i stand up at two hundred forty two of those lowlife i represent oldfield march fourth elementary and i will stay and and i will fight and i will do whatever it takes to get something done for those children that day is whose love

him no more i'll hold on to that that. was cut. i was. in the league. will be. good. at it he said. well you know i couldn't talk to as many folks as i have along the way that a lot of folks shows for revenge a kind of

a lot of folks on the issue we've raised a little money for the new school in the issue in one of our goals was to come here and hopefully make a stand a bird and i feel that we have conflict all three of them and i believe it's going for a lot of doors for a lot of people on this issue no it's 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. for her. frank good.

god. god god god. and neil. first three years for the rights of those children that i see it's raining cats right now are sad. about smudge day i'm sorry it. doesn't mean anything to you we've preached you know for three years. to marry the people in these camps used to be accountable for that but what i want to ask you to do i'm going to go back to the back corner we need to clear this way because people got a good back and forth your eyes. i'm sure more work. you have to get

a new school that's the one you're broke your eye playing here i'm telling you we are not budging there's more coming. your. way around the iron fist fight you know what you're offering their field will go to market every morning meeting a whisper in the air while he is right now we want results today we want our kids to do face. share. wired to our kids and there. are girls day in the code field. there on the wrong side of them i don't. know we are the people that bring their money out of them out of the little farm where you can be took care of her build her children. for the state

good job in this you such as whether school should be the new school should be built a decision was first we have to look. i've heard. local school board with the decision on a new school have more for you for the people raleigh. so they can determine the final outcome from sales so i. know all i could i hope that the. earth movers be heard. if. you. can hear those is good read and may say. people. here certainly care who. i was.

i. was. i. was i was. i. was was i. was

. ok can i ask her. to push her out. if. you.

i am. the. man. they're not. going to say. it may.

be observed nature and discover its beauty. communicate with the wild and let us. test yourself and become free and. see what nature can give you an aunty. signed up to fill in the military because i thought that it was my duty and that it was something that i could do to help my country i believe my government i thought that it was necessary for americans to feel no there was a lot of drug abuse there was a lot of murder of american officers by american soldiers there were a lot of good stories it was a simple problem right. before the war i always thought i wanted to limit

a lot of medals only to have a lot of decorations but afterwards i realize that they they don't mean anything here or there or that in for. i don't i don't i never saw the medal.

home.