most of the carbon that we mine from across the 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 atmosphere as carbon dioxide beginning in earnest with the development of the steam engine in the late seventeen early eighteen hundreds he wins begin to 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 last year 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 in 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 mining 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 buying a bright land they were laughed at and they said there's no way in the world you get a piece we put them like that on the narrow ridges southern that blacks and and they were determined through engineering abilities and persistence to make certain that

it worked and and it has. command was a pleasant. thing. to see. digital be. illegal. such. an easy way. to get to liza's. and. see. the sleet and plumes the.

way he played these little children i am sorry little children will be protected this night from treatment or your family can grant me. a family and do a damn good people become real or not come we are going to marry then they might. again be able to benefit from every car every item or parent comes from a pair of pants or there are a number of years to forsake their family our children to destroy your reaction lowered. and such you. require a place. we're going to take your hard earned money. sleep. to slug. sleep. it's.

never played out my family's september. let me need to keep moving her desperate techniques community 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 tavi not long ago he said well the reason the d.n.c. saying it's going extinct cost the deer are in. order to styles and. that's not the garage sale process 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. 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 will be sorry later actually. 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 with. the same what they're doing one. since some ways they're dividing our community. i've got nothing against free speech but when you come in here demanding people's jobs and clothes or schools they all. 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 it has arsenic. chromium there's a lot of really really bad chemicals in this sludge 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. 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 this stuff together you've got bad headaches all the time you've got. problems occur more and more down or i mean there's. a planner for you a lot of kids. in allow them to keep like look all the time just drain and all the time the kids are coming home with blisters and their mile 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 unlike us that she never came home dirty with powder 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 schools and government officials will improve the safety of more work elementary one of the granddaughter kayla attends marsport home entry launches the pennies a promise campaign to raise six million dollars to build

a new school and so with us here. because. it's inside there and take your money. money. money if you want to build it in school because i don't like. to start the pennies or promise campaign wiley and his crew. daughter kayla presented governor with over four hundred dollars in pennies he orders a collector. we like to see together we have some money to present him. the story of a story. that stuck out for kids everywhere now you are doing a good to see you have a young lady here from marsh fork elementary. the south of. which.

i didn't. even know you started at the school since. oh you don't do that stuff. and. it's. ok to have a little gable here for you but this is our pay and fight ok. now we're let me just you know so far as i know we worked on this some we talked about it the fourth time but the school yes or the school were we out with the local board of education let's just start all over sure they smack up a whole lot we're not going get them you took us for north to protect the way from the west we're going to use it women test it would someone 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 now an environmental issue this is a little human being 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. you do a better job and i appreciate i don't mean to be rich but if this was your child it would 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 the teacher the spoke out last year now he's been told he better start with you we don't want you going to do this how do everything in my heart that i want to do that that means that i do everything in my gut because with that we got to. learn english just 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 out 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 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 well. disposable and views the landscape as disposable and it's all about getting the coal out of the ground it's quickly. all 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 tools that let you get a loan created it company still. for about three presses put it this way lloyd your

coke head company stores they hard g you lived near kochi if you work for them they did more kitchen somebody else's store. and one of the others all matters bad they still owed to company store you couldn't pitch it won't pay him well. he made company money scrip don't price it wasn't good it was 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 sell the kit trick and what you're going to use middle today killed a chick to. give you hand polies stamp you number of what you got your car loaded with cold somewhere on this car you and i want you checked it would be a meal driver load times i'd be go on board back to stay in school he would pull you to cohen here drop it off unhook piecemeal from it called the phone.

right now it real easy loud rock him with your code who will show your life you got a water tank in a slot. of no little water drip in your career bud. and does a smear of good but it works pretty good. problem almost. oh you know look at the history of our area especially they with big communities that are they with scant rings big companies still worth everything to pay for i mean this company housed all down that river off stuff and set down. our schools are good because there is no money all the stores are or close and nothing is coming back these are people with this coal 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 gone over with. five years. top removal site moved into the head waters of the stream that runs by my 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 don't holland do it i live in the middle of this why. because it's ok it's ok that me he'll be away from southern west virginia where is the middle of this hail so am i ask my son. roan. i don't know nobody nuttin i don't own species me in 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 us forthwith must say for just eight or nine years they all just we really appreciate massive 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 will 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 in a 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 samples 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 carmelita brown has been battling for clean want to see. twenty some years ago. and water turned black and black stripe and i asked are the hollering and screaming 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. said 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. or pretty good compared to what it was this morning these documents from the west virginia department of natural resources researched by mountain just to summer 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 disparagement 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 actually aired it was to pull out the moral for some reason went bankrupt or whatever all the story pods you know who's responsible for the county. we've got the paperwork we know the cabbies are responsible for the cleanup of the story. nobody wanted to help us nobody want nobody was concerned and it was it only made it was oh my mayor's at 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 of seemed

a fair amount of. ill health mannix they were members on a kidney dialysis another neighbor a man as is has lost a kidney had it 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 as can the damage. now several people are not necessary has lost babies they carried them six months and have maybe stillborn.

mine. would be soon which brightened if you move the sound from phones to pressure. groups don't talk t.v. don't come.

breaking news on r t divers a find the bodies of as many as forty children trapped when the pleasure boat they were on sank in central russia tuesday has been declared a day of mourning for the victims of the accident. ready to go east coast homes remain dormant. as relatives the 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 described their desperate attempts to save one another 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. on the other news now israel rushes through a law that allows legal action against its own citizens if they oppose jewish

settlements in the west bank the bill coincides with the latest attempts to jump start the stalled peace talks between israel and palestine by the middle east quartet in washington. and up next we have some hot debate on archie's cross talk show on the sixteenth anniversary of the chevron need to massacre lavelle asks his guests if we have a fair and balanced interpretation of the events. floatin welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle as the world remembers the tragic events that befell separate needs adults court rules that peacekeepers task to protect civilians during the bosnian conflict failed in their duties sixteen years on do we have a fair and balanced interpretation of this war and we have

a proper memory for all victims. to crossed out the bosnian conflict i'm joined by mohammed choco be he's a former bosnian ambassador to the u.n. and in london we crossed the me share of the old richie is a political expert on the balkans all right gentlemen cross talk rules are in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want to go to you first today is the sixteenth anniversary official anniversary of events that occurred inside burning so are you satisfied how mainstream media portrays those events and we can use tragic events where i can you can use whatever you want but how do you feel that the description of that anniversary is being understood understood today. well i've been most unhappy for the last sixteen years the way that it has been represented lead to start out with its description most of the worst to war crime in europe since the second world.