twenty second two thousand and eight coal ash impoundment at the tennessee valley authority east kingston fossil plant failed when an earthen dike broke spilling over one point one billion gallons of coal ash lodge over three hundred acres. coal ash sludge because waste created from the burning of coal at the kingston coal plant 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 bill is ten times larger than the exxon valdez spill in alaska and is believed to be america's largest environmental disaster to date but 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 but 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 scrip 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 melton's 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 wylie has formulated a new plan for pennies a promise. our government to 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

there are kids you know we're going to money for school one or your another. like we are going to school in our community and. it's showing that our government should come to this if we can't get up and done for children. we're going to watch the trolls on west virginia the worse we 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 mountaintop removal what it's doing toes in in in the mining industry to archimedes was a perfectly viable one what it's actually doing to our children the governor made

us tighten our kids our future by our to morrow he should die almost up and more are just marched for don't have them are. politically it. 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 mind 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 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 large debt to pay to the coal industry and they made sure he paid it throughout 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 slight wording change in 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 in 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 exciting times for america and we're just 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 work welcome back here in the back and he said i'm around 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 kafer down outside charleston west virginia and when i met with the coal company to file 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 a 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 this is the vice president cultural production a new gene kids from mexico 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 to my family cemetery and in ninety nine to now own the crater restful and eighteen and all when i started this i couldn't get to people to listen not even my own family. now you know have i turned a corner how press the knob on a or that was there was before this no lonely there in my own mind. or just. the young kids of the day were never seen where i've seen the young as of the day were never seen the mountains the earth. no remnants 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 people know 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 him in 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 it's just to me a safe. shore 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. and i did so with you. the first waterhole i risk one man in my life was up then how i. their water hole is not their normal guys they have six seven hundred foot high wall there now. my mama give me birth you know in the light. well. you can get to the cemetery through their corner as your round. they used to be a road over here. for a few. for. one right here.

over here is another one i want i hear. your people are taking part in history is playing to cemeteries been here for two hundred seventy years never had this many people on it in the last hundred fifty years ice time knocked out a come through here they wouldn't or gentleness or kind the sense we got a minister here i won't tell you what else they said to me. 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 to this 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. stand up to the plate. and our why i stand up to her.

and i will and i will by and i will. get something done for. more. for. our families going to. look. at. how.

well. i could talk to as many folks as i have along the way that a lot of folks shows. we've raised a little money for the new school and. one of our goals is to come here and hopefully in. sandberg and i feel that we have copied all three of them and i believe this call 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.

thank you thank you. for her or her. children and nailed thirty 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 pray for you all for three years and seven at least canary people if the people in these capital are used to be held accountable for. what i want to ask you do 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 for your. loser or more who are clearly her.

because we were going to school at the one you're going to cure ain't like 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 field will no . more meet in a whisper in the air while they are worrying won't result the day we war our kids didn't. share. wired our kids there. for girls day in the coal fields. they're on the wrong side of the damned.

yeah we are the cradle that bring that money out that man. farmer where you need to be took care of his house build our 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 have more for you for a vote of the people of raleigh. so they can determine the final outcome from themselves so i'm going to join me. now or put a poke at the. birth of speakers. for. you. if you. can't because you. may say. people. are still here who.

are like my. hair. i've spent. my. life. i.

it's. the in.

the old. movie. going to. be a. model the body may be an. old look. to her. own.

home. the east. room is it's safe to. exit. the. same except we were out.

to. meet me. for the full story we've got. the big. human voice face to face with the news maker.

mission. couldn't take three days for charges three. arrangement three. three stooges free. and free boat loaded video for your media projects free media on to our.

breaking news on r t divers finding the bodies of as many as forty children trapped when they pleasure a boat that they were on sank in central russia tuesday has been declared a day of mourning for the victims of the accident. goes both much for me no matter who. has relatives that struggle to come to terms with the loss of their loved ones officials say the captains of two passing boats that failed to come to the aid of survivors will face severe punishment surviving passengers and crew have it describes their desperate attempts to save one another preliminary findings into the accident say a combination of human error mechanical failure and bad weather caused the disaster president medvedev has ordered wide checks of the country's water transport system following the accident. to other news now israel rushes through a law that allows

a legal action against its own citizens if they oppose a jewish settlements in the west bank and the bill coincides with the latest attempts to jumpstart stalled peace talks between israel and palestine by the middle east quartet in washington. and up next on our chief financial guru max kaiser names names and exposes who he thinks is behind the financial turmoil that continues to grip europe that's in the kind of report. max kaiser this is the cause or report let's get all the details from stacey or tax europe declares war on rating agencies a chorus of policymakers from europe across the world have denounced moody's drastic downgrade of portuguese debt as an act of financial vandalism accusing the

anglo-saxon rating agencies of driving states into bankruptcy and destabilizing the global system yeah that's right they call it financial vandalism or upping the rhetoric and we we've been talking about financial terrorism for months and months and months now they're upping their rhetoric they're going to get to the point now where they realize that this is in fact not vandalism which is a quaint way of saying terrorism they didn't accuse a sullivan law of vandalism on nine eleven no member did that it was an act of terrorism moody's s. and p. has tricked or financial terrorists and they are purposefully targeting these countries for destruction because they want their assets for nothing well portugal's new premier pedro passos coelho said moody's downgraded was a punch in the stomach at a time when the new government has done everything demanded by the e.u. and i.m.f. inspectors well that's part of a racket moody's a publicly traded company warren buffet's when the biggest shareholder they manipulate that stock.