sure to find this piece of the first. swiss are close knit hold to let me go it's going to go through a couple boutique hotel. without sea as we highlight the top stories of today this week libyan rebels are gaining on colonel gadhafi as they advance westwards closer to the allied airstrikes helping them to retake several key oil town meanwhile and nato is ready to replace the u.s. leading the coalition's campaign in moscow says the foreign intervention in servers all the crimes against his own citizens but he warns that ordinary people shouldn't suffer during strikes russia says foreign forces have been reckless in their. civilian deaths. also in the news this week hundreds of thousands marched on the

streets of london protested eighty billion pounds worth of cuts demonstrations also gripped the heart of the e.u. with many angry of austerity at home while money is being found in libya intervention. and in japan radiation levels reportedly reach ten million times the norm in the water at the fukushima nuclear plant the claims being denied by the plant. a high concentration of radioactive iodine and also be detected in the sea near the facility. well next to explore a controversial mining technique which it's feared could bring about one of the greatest environmental catastrophes in american history the first part of this multi award winning film is next to stay with us. i am up

a leg lewis blayse says good. sled to start a leg of the leg. a. long. pole it's good to be easy to lead . and. a

leg leg . most of the carbon that we buy from across 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 the atmosphere as carbon dioxide beginning in earnest with the development of the steam engine in the late seventeen early eighteen hundreds here when the begin to. 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 would

return to the muster 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 the useful generation of energy we have larger quitman it was introduced on surface mines 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 skylab manning seen step work an economical to man and even physically impossible. without the use of that. many people twenty five years ago when the first company said it will 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 in on the narrow ridges of 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. lose. digital be. some. easy ways. to get lisa's.

mom. and dad. to see. the sleep lose. weight think these little children i'm sorry little children will be protected this night from treatment for your family currently. didn't do a damn good people in the continental airlines probably ever have. been and i guess be able to cover it from every car and from her parent cars from the airplanes are there are a number of years to forsake the family are cheaper to destroy your reaction lord yes and such. a remarkable. place. we're going to take your partner and if so can the. legal. system up. sleep.

right now for the flight down my please stop him. you need to keep moving her back pretending he's giving you any map if dismantling the community. 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 come back i mean you know we had a politician get up on t.v. not long ago he said well the reason that jan saying it's raining think the deer are in. order bought this thousand acres. that's nothing. now the process of mountaintop removal coal mine is an awesome display of coal extraction engineering it is also quite simple once a 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 think it's our latest action rather than blacksburg and really. 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. see 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 all. and i and i and all that you're lucky you don't get hurt hurt but. 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 they're 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 that has arsenic. chromium there's a lot of really really bad chemicals in this sludge and there is a lake of 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 and the sophistication of engineering that goes into the construction of those is i suspect not duplicated in any other physical structure anywhere in in the world in one thousand nine hundred two buffalo creek there was 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 coal processing facility located directly behind marsh fork elementary so he sits three hundred feet away three hundred fifty feet away the neighbor sits directly caused the river and you've got. so very got the magnetite you got the walk you got the ammonia they use the bad bad still they use diesel fuel in there they mix all the stuff together you've got bad headaches all the time you've got. problems occurring more and more downer i mean if you're stuck in the free trade a lot of kids. are in a lot of people like look all the time just drain and all the time the kids are

coming home with blisters and their mild 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 accountable and if 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 town today and more like college closed and like us that she never came home dirty with or you know any sickness and i've manacle records to prove that she has not had anything other than a common cold up like any other child. we. didn't. get . frustrated local school and government officials you can see it marsh work elementary one of the granddaughter kayla attends marsport home

and tree launches the pennies a promise campaign to raise six million dollars to build a new school and so when there. is. this inside there is it your money. money. money that you want to build against. because i don't like. to start the pennies or promise campaign wiley and his crew. daughter taylor her simply governor with over four hundred dollars in pennies he orders a collector. we like to see the governor we have some money to present him. the story of a. step down for kids everywhere you are doing good to see you have a young lady here from our fork elementary. the south in. which.

i don't. even know you. have to school since. you're going to the senate. and. it's. ok one has a little gable here for you but this is our campaign ok. now we're let me just say you know. i know we worked on this some we talked about this for a time but the school yes sir i'm at the school where we at with the local board of education start all over sure they smack up a whole lot we're not going get them you took us for north to protect the waveland west we're going to use it women has to go and tell you to 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 rich that but if this was your child would he not be well you know the love you know and she's beautiful sure what we should we care about our children down there and they're sure it's probably just a lot of issues and i know you're aware there's intimidation going on there a lot of intimidation a teacher the spoke out last year now he's been told he better start with you we don't want you going to do it how do you do everything in my heart that i want that that means that i do everything in my power guys but that we got to be

a. journalist jeff goodell is 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 in the coal mining has always gone to the top and been siphoned out by the the owners essentially whether they're

corporations or call 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 it's prickly. tolls and everything you needed to man in love disco with you bottom yourself. and if you start out into madness you had to have those two they didn't let you get

a moan created it company still. for about three presses put it this way love your coke head company stores they hard you lived in your kochi if you work for them they didn't want kitchens somebody else's store. and one of the others all matters bad they still owed to company store you couldn't pitch up won't pay him well. he made company money scrip don't price it wasn't good it was a company store i got an updated script it's worth more today than it was made. right. usually until the you know you could make more two dolls day right here zelda keep track of which are moving so use middle today killed a chick to. give you a hand polies stamp you number on what you got your car loaded with cold somewhere on this car you would i want to check to see i'd be a mule driver lead times i'd be a young boy back to stay in school he would pull leave to go in here drop it off

unhook his meal from it come to the phone. right now it really easy loud rock him if you cold who show your life you've got a water tank in a slot. of no little water drip in your career a bad writer. and does a smear of good but it works pretty good. problem ronald's you also you know look at the history of our area faithfully they was big communities now today with scant rings big companies still worth everything the painful i mean with this company housed all down that river. or. our schools are good because there's no like all the stores were 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 all go to go early with junior 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'd be 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 why. because it's ok it's ok that maybe he'll be away from southern west virginia is the middle of this tale so am i ask a play my son. roan. i don't know nobody nutten i don't own space million jobs i don't own jobs and if i thank god i don't know their day and wrong across appalachians coal fields mining jobs are vital to local economies my husband has worked with messi for just eight or nine years and they all. we really appreciate last day that's where we get our money in 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 coalfield 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 will 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 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 a brew of 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 samples representing what that material that entered our rivers and streams really is which i find rather prosperous 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 more you had one built over old. underground ones and they gave way in the bottom and that's what happened with the structure itself to. go 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 in math has been got up and asked and asked me what was wrong take a man and he said when he looked at it he said my god he said that's close laurie. we went and looked at fifteen wells. sent the 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've never seen water quality that poor. 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 four and nine hundred eighty five dispersement describe slurry 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 underground i have no idea where it goes. if i if i ask the energy was to pull out the moral performers 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 clean up of the story. nobody wanted to help us nobody want nobody was concerned and it wasn't only made it was oh my mayors that down this road well the patients i see for all have significant medical problems other people don't have. a greater number of people with all timers disease than 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 i've seen a fair amount of just ill health mannix there were members on the kidney dialysis another neighbor a man as is his last 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 because canadian which. now several people are not necessary has lost babies they carried him six months and have maybe stillborn.

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