it may be the cheapest fuel but it also releases the most carbon to be a mysterious 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 and might return to the us here 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 in the useful generation of energy we have larger quitman it was introduced on surface minds about twenty five years ago here in washington which accounted for the the ability to recover coal seams that heretofore been manacled the use of

dragline land mining seems that were 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 southern appalachia and and they were determined through engineering abilities and persistence to make certain that it worked and and it hands.

losing. digital being. illegal. the easy way. to kill easy. sleep looms. pretty good think these little children i'm sorry little children will be protected this night from treatment or your family can carry. a bandage you and the people on it become real and i'm probably a very very good name and i guess be able to find one for me to call every either

parent comes from if they're not friends or there are a number of years to forsake their dad in our church it destroyed their reaction lowered. her. reply to a plea. bargain explain your. leap. to some other. sleep. it's. sad never cut down my pepys least september. you need to keep moving her back for chinese community math is dismantling the community and. 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 to come back i mean you know we had a politician get up on tavi not long ago he said well the reason that jan saying

it's going extinct because the deer are in. order bought this thousand acre. site 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 the 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 drag 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 hundreds of feet sites are often thousands of acres in size but i would say these are like actual. blacksburg and written. 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 why is there a divide in our community. i've got nothing against free speech but when you come in here demand and people's jobs and clothes or schools they own. and all that you're lucky you don't get 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. their 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 coasts laurie 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 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 cold 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 serious problems over you've got the magnetite you've got the walk you've got the ammonia

they use the bad bad stuff they use diesel fuel in there they mix all this stuff together we've got. all the time. you got. problems with her and more more down her. planner for you a lot of kids. in a lot of people like look all the time or just drain 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 times a day and more like college closed and unlike us that she never came home dirty

with or you know any thickness and i manacled records to prove that she has not had anything other than a common cold up like any other child. we. did it until it. frustrated local school and government officials human action on improving safety at marsh fork elementary while granddaughter kayla attends marsport column entry launches the pennies a promise campaign to raise six million dollars to build a new school here and so with us here. at a. little. bit inside there is a cure money. money to build. a mother that she wanted to build against. because i don't like. to start the pennies or promise campaign wiley and his granddaughter kayla present the governor with over four hundred

dollars in pennies he can order snow collector. we'd like to see the governor we have some money to present him. so the story. right. now step kids everywhere regular doing good to see if we have a young lady here from our fork elementary in. the south and. let's. say i don't see. people going to start. school centers. or you going to the senate. and. it's. ok to have a little give we're here for you but this is our campaign ok. now we're let me just you know as 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 to start all over sure that smack up a whole lot we're not going get them you took us for north to protect the waveland what's we're going to use it women has it's own tell you today 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 vain 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 going to stay just 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 aggressive but if this

was your child would you not be well you know that enough you know happens and she's beautiful and so what we should we care about our child. 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 want to going to do it how do you do everything in my heart that i want to do that that means that i do everything in my back because of that we got 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 is 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 it 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 and 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 disposable and views the landscape as disposable and it's all about getting the coal out of the

ground as quickly. tolls and everything you needed to man in love disco with you bottom yourself. if you start now to matters you had to have those tools that let you get a loan created company still. for about three presses put it this way love your coke head company stores they hard g. you lived near kochi if you work for them they don't want a kitchen some i also store. and one of the others all matters bad they still owed to company store you could 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 healthy though you could make more two dolls day right here sell the kit trick which are so use middle today going to. give you a handful of these stamp you number of what you got your car loaded with coal somewhere on this car you would i want to check to see i would be a mule driver lead times i'd be a go on board. in one state school he would pull you to cohen here drop it off unhook piecemeal from it come to the phone. right now it really easy to loud rock him with your code who show you know why you got a water tank in a slot. of no little water drip in your career bud see it right there. and doesn't smell really good but it works pretty good. all.

right number almost. zero and you know look at the history of our area especially with big communities now today with scant rings big companies still worth everything to pay for i mean this company housed all down that river off stuff and set their. 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 in all go to go early with rhydian you're broke and go on the big go on the road with. five years. mountaintop removal site moved into the head waters of the stream 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 on relocate my property it's worthless 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 go home to 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 is the middle of this tale so am i ask my son. roan.

i don't know nobody nutten i don't own species million jobs i don't own jobs and if i thank god i don't know their day and run across appalachians coal fields mining jobs are vital to local economies my husband us work with my essay for just eight or nine years will. we really appreciate my essay 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 cofield 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 i mean 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'll 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 right 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 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 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 carmelita brown has been battling for clean want to. twenty

some years ago. and water turned black and black straight and asked are the harness criminal 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 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 had never seen water quality is 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 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 four and one nine hundred eighty five disbursement 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 tomorrow for some reason went bankrupt or whatever all the story pods you know who is responsible for that can't we got the paperwork we know the calories are responsible for the cleanup of the floor. god

nobody wanted to help us nobody want nobody was concerned and it wasn't only made it was oh my mate was 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 of 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 came a 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 causes can the damage. now several people not necessary has lost babies i have carried them six months and

have maybe stillborn.

the first funerals are held in russia as the country mourns the victims of sunday's pleasure cruise a sinking on the. other nineteen deaths of. dozens of bodies trapped under water continue. to extend the military campaign in libya highlight inconsistency is in paris. to find ways out of the deadlock. and wiki leaks founder julian assange is fighting a decision by a british court to extradite him to sweeten of a sex crime allegations which supporters say is just a pretext to hand it over to the u.s. . and russia wants to take the customs union with one step further. free trade zone created between the union and. twenty minutes from business.

well come from moscow if you just joined us it's ten pm here now my name is kevin owen you're watching the r.t. international news channel first the first funerals have been held in russia's republic of tarter start as the country mourns the victims of its worst boating accident in decades rescue is a continuing to search for bodies tonight including those of dozens of children who gathered in a play room just moments before the heavily overloaded ship sank over ninety people have now been confirmed dead our correspondent tom barton has the latest. operations continue here from the volga bank south of san with divers and other teams going out to try and recover more bodies from the sunken river pleasure cruise the bog area meanwhile in itself today is a day of mourning huge crowds fountains of people gathered on the pier next to the river boat station in to show their respects to those that died in the sinking of

the ship as a mark of respect ships were sailing the volga participated in a blowing of their horns and a minute's silence followed to try and show respect for the dead. we went amongst the crowds and i asked some of the people there what they were feeling about the aftermath of this tragic attack strophe. where ambulance workers a colleague was in that ship she wanted a cruise together was family husband five year old son and also she was pregnant or was to deliver her second baby noticed she's not found yet only husband managed to survive see interest until i was.