hundred pound mints in west virginia alone the total quantity of coal slurry in the rest of southern appalachian. on december twenty second two thousand a coal ash impoundment at the tennessee valley authority 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 estimates the cost of the clean up job of 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 viable resource and that is

water and 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 and. u.s. news and world reports and all at that where the authors are warning people to believe that that we're absolutely script in appalachia down to nothing. in order to get the mineral is patently untrue it's patently untrue when you look around at the forest in elton'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 ed wiley 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 job there were the kids you know we're going to money for school one way or another . like we are going to school in our community and. it's rich it's showing that our government has come to this we can't get nothing done for children. we. were going to watch the charleston west virginia the worst do you see you all know this is the rise awareness and raise money for no school and it also opens a lot of doors of the plank to chapman in our communities as far as mountaintop

removal what it's doing to those in in in the mining industry to our communities this is a perfectly viable one what it's actually doing to our children the governor made us tightening our kids our future by our tomorrow he should die almost up and for our kids on march fourth don't have them all. over the. 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 mud color in the two thousand election in 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 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 stocked all the regulatory agencies with with former coal industry lobbyists or executives by two thousand and one the bush

administration made a swipe 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 but folks we need more supply you know workers welcome back here in the

back and he said i'm real repairing a machine that digs for gold. we need to use coal we've got a lot of it and we need to make sure that we. were the. way around this. 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 a call come in 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 that mountain all we care about is profit we're making and that was the dollar i would have been and that's how i know we were playing there and that this is a vice president cultural reduction using 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 for you to clear my family symmetry and if one thousand nine hundred ninety eight announced the clearest photo in eighteen years ago when i started this i couldn't get to people through this and not even my own family. and i don't know about turning a corner how crest of a knob on a or that was there was before the snow only there in my own mind only had. the lord just blown. the young ads of the day were never seen you were i've seen the young as of the day were never see the mountains the with. no limits no boundaries

for you could roam gibson uses the land a 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 easily granted. on memorial day of two thousand and six gibson and a group of supporters make a trip to the cemetery it well today we're going to go on the mine site of the cemetery. and we get to how all around and different things going on and. it's just me. showing and probably

a cowboy to get the cold even into a graveyard. after filling out a dedication and release forms the group is permitted to enter the mine site you know one and a half mile hike to the family cemetery. and imagine having to sign a release to go. out and hundreds with you i was. the first waterhole i risk one man in my life was up there. the water would not there now we've got six seven hundred foot high wall there and. my mama give me birth. in the light. well. you can get to the cemetery through their corner as you're

around. there used to be a road over here for five feet one right here. over to the other wanted. one i hear. your people are taking part in history is playing the cemetery been here for two hundred seventy years and never had this many people wanted in the last hundred fifty years nice time knocked out a come through here they wouldn't or gentleness or kind. the center got a minister here i will tell you our house they sent to my. house and these people for a rainy fifth graders the first time in julian come here four years ago we had caves phones i had dates on and they're no longer here if they're even in saying that we came and got any. and it's not the case and the words are taken from down the corner say on johnson on the side is we're just not been heard here for

a lone 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 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 plant were found to be an accurate. live.

nobody would stand up. nobody would stand up to the street. i stand up for a larger and lower flood i stand up to two hundred forty two of those lowlife i represent the old philip morris fork elementary and i will stay and and i will fight and i will do whatever it takes to get something done for these children that they asses love him no more al will deny that it. was cut. he was. a little in the league. will be. little league.

but if he says. well you know i couldn't talk to as many folks as i have along the way that a lot of folk shows for revenge a kind a lot of folks on the issue we've raised a little money for the new school only issue in one of our goals was to come here and hopefully talk and make a stand a bird and i feel that we have conflict all three of them and i believe us go for a lot of doors for a lot of people on this issue you know 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 messy 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. god. and not kill. first three years for the rights of those children that i see it's raining caps right now are saying about smudge's day i'm sorry. does that mean anything to you we brits 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 do back to the back corner we need to clear this way because people got a good back and forth sure. there were more work. 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 yet you know what they're offering their bill to market every morning made in a whisper in the air while he's fighting them we want results today we want our kids to face. share. wired to our kids

a dinner. for company in their code review. their on their own found them i don't. know we are the regular bring their money out of them out of the little farmer where you need to be took care of his her bill her children. for the state and good old business you such as whether school should be the. new school should be built a decision must first be they have to look. i've heard the low. the 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 i'm still so i'm going to join me. now all i could i hope that cordy. urges measures to be heard. here.

if you. can hear if you would read and may say. people in your circle here who. are like that but i think. i. was. i. was. i. was.

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with the end of the boer war and the going away of the soviet union many people

thought that nuclear weapons disappeared. the risk is not zero that something might be going off by mistake especially a lot of weapons on hair trigger alert. focus of the victims to use it. all but you know if you keep spinning a trillion dollars a year on weapons of venture you're going to blow everybody up you you know people are dying from these weapons but until we actually see it people don't wake up to nuclear weapons or a bill. that represents all of the firepower of the second world war and this second sound is the equivalent. of the world's nuclear arsenal today.

breaking news on our t.v. divers finding 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. but even the rebels postmarked charles remain on the plane has relatives struggled to come to terms with the loss of their loved ones officials say the captains of the two passing boats that failed to come to the aid of survivors will face severe punishment for surviving passengers and crew have described 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 has ordered wide checks of the country's water transportation system following the accident. on to other news now israel rushes through a law that allows illegal action against its own citizens. 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. next to 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 kaiser report next right here on r.t. . 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 and across the world have denounced the 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 son of in law of vandalism on nine eleven who never did that and it's it was an act of terrorism mooney's s. and p. has tricked our 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 price they manipulate their ratings they telegraph what the reg.