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so. on the day of this interview the small creek less than one mile from their home flows black and i it's not normal that's coming from an abandoned coal mines or it's come from start part. i don't know. what a stake in our heart. might be a few more years not a lot. and not help us went down tremendously. and i don't ever look to be helped far as i don't ever look at the sun and i don't think there's anything i can do to help. that only thing along now along a good moral i want them to quit pump them or quit inject and whatever they're doing when i want them to quit that. and.

it's all mopped or maybe even. for the last twenty years. it's going ot. you can't make it without good water. from. the. news. currently there are over one hundred forty billion gallons of coal slurry contained in more than one hundred impoundments in west virginia alone a total quantity of coal slurry in the rest of southern appalachians. and december twenty second two thousand and eight coal ash impoundment at the tennessee valley authority skanks in 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 as waste created from the burning of coal at the kingston

coal plant and is believed to contain toxic compounds including arsenic and mercury . the tennessee valley authority has commutes 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 for throwing away the next generation's most valuable resource and that is water and one of the best sources of water anywhere in the world and maybe the best source of freshwater in proximity to one of the world's largest fastest growing populations. and you know with all the hubbub and all the lawsuits and all the carrying on that goes on 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 strip 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 the mountains that we have a recent environmental impact statement from the e.p.a. estimates over eight hundred square miles of mountains have 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. other federal regulations for mine reclamation require that mountaintop removal sites be returned to their original contour these mines are routinely granted waivers mined areas are typically graded and then hydro seeded with less but these are grass which clings to the compacted shale and rock but 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 or is the very thin covering of to generate a few centimeters of soil you're talking about hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of years continuing at its present rate the projected loss for mountaintop removal mining it's 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 at wylie has formulated a new plant for pennies a promise. our government shako do it or a local school board state school board or do it in a way a citizen to you know and parents and grandparents it's up to you to get this job for the kids you know we're going to go raise the money for schools one way or another. like we will give the school built in our community. let's make it clear it's showing that our government didn't come to this we can get

nothing done for children. we're going to watch the charleston west virginia worship do you see y'all know this is the right awareness and raise money for new school it also opens a lot of doors and applying to chapman in our communities as far as mountaintop removal what it's doing so it's good in the mining industry to our community this is a probably going up hill what what it's actually doing to our children the governor made a statement our kids are our future they are tomorrow he's a day are most open for things are geared to march fourth don't have them are. politically. burning of coal was or over a century has been one of the most deadly things there 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 is that the politicians the leaders of the administration as well as congress state legislators and administrations in the states all those leaders have got the final say. we want to mine coal 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 you

calls he was widely credited for giving bush west virginia so it's no secret that he had a large debt to pay to the coal industry and they made sure he paid it through out and 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 bush administration made a slight wording changing the clean water act as a meeting waste as you will this wording change here the way expansion of mountain talk 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

thank you. and we can do a better job in america one of these days we're going to be driving you know automobiles that are fuel differently and that's going to exciting times for america i was new technologies coming down and we can encourage those technologies so conservation technological development got to be an integral part of energy folks we need more supply you know work at school i can back here in the back and he said i'm real repairing a machine it takes the go. we need to use coal we got a lot of it and we need to make sure. we're thank. you a way around a little for the past twenty years larry gibson and his family have been fighting to preserve their ancestral home place on k. ford mountain called side charleston west virginia i when i met with the coal

company to my property here me and my family members and they tell me that we don't give a damn about people in her car and we don't give a damn about the people on top of that mountain all we care about is profit we are making and it was the dollar i would have bought and the powerful i know we were playing there and that is why i spread of cultural production and using kids from magic zero nine hundred ninety three tell me this gibson created to steel ears foundation be fusing to sell his family's fifty plus acres to coal companies before mountaintop removal began his family cemetery was surrounded by mountain regions 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 three months i missed him and three and if one thousand nine hundred ninety to now and it's very restful in a team owner florida this couldn't get to people who listen now even own family. now

you know about turned on or how pressed the knob on they were that was there was before the snowy there in my own mind only had. the order just for. the young eyes of the day were never seen where i've seen the young as of the day were never see the mountains with no remains no boundary for your own. gibson uses the land a cave heard 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 not before was destroyed. the paper no question you take a picture of a mountain for we're going to be here forever. day by day a seventy five hundred acres of active mountaintop removal mine continue to encircle his property. another family cemetery sits across the ridge on the ak

and nine side although regulations require that family members have access to the cemeteries requests are often not he's lee granted on memorial day of two thousand and six keeps in a group of supporters make a trip to the cemetery they want a day we're going to go on the mine site at the cemetery. and we get the how order around in different things going on and i it's just to me a safety. zone and probably count forty or go to get to comb even under a graveyard. after filling out a jennifer cation 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. said. i. didn't imagine having to sign

a release to be. heard it's with you i was. the first waterhole i respond then and my life was up then how high the water was not there no more with us there from six seven hundred foot how are there now. my mama give me birth you know to give me life. you need to have some of their color as your round. they used to be a road over here. one right here. over here the other one i. want i hear. your people are taking part in history this land the same third been here for two hundred seventy years never had as many people on it in the last hundred fifty years and i stand on top of it come through here the winds are gentle and so kind

and since we got a minister here i will 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 case for one who had bates on him they're no longer here i think in saying that we came and got it and. this is not the case and they weren't instead going to say johnson i want to say is we're just not going to hurt here for alone time in mid august of two thousand and six the west virginia department of environmental protection boat a permit to massey energy to expand its plant more for telamon tree by building a second coal silo a 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 accurate.

we're. going to. help me out. nobody will stand up to these. i stand up for my grandmother for what i stand up to her for a life i represent don't feel remorse for elementary and i will and i will buy an hour. to get something done for these children. no more our goal going to. cut our village funds let's.

look. at. how. big. how. well you know i could talk to as many folks as i have along the way that a lot of folks shows. a lot of focus on the issue we've raised a little money for the new school. in. come here and hopefully in. sandberg and i feel that we have toughest all three of them and latest well for

a lot of doors for a lot of people on this issue know it's very important for me to walk on march fourteenth two thousand and seven the state board of surface mining overturned the 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 nessie 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 sophos. thank. you. for her or her.

we'll. tell you i know 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 your for three years in a supernanny canary for the people in these cattle to be held accountable for that and what i want to ask you i'm going to do back to back corner we need to clear this way because people are going to get back for her. for him or her for her. because we were here in the newsroom at the one you're a curator like here i'll tell you we are not budging there's more common. was.

this around now i hear it is right now what they're offering their field. for me and in a whisper in the air why is there were more results today we want our kids to say. why are the our kids there. for company in the coal fields. they're on the wrong phone. you know we are the paid well they bring their money out them at the local farmer where you get they took care of our children. before the state can get involved in this series such as whether school should be the new school should be built a decision must first be made at the local. currency the local school board with

the decision on a new school that more or before i go to the people of raleigh. so they can determine while our own from the sales side of your. knowledge could have forgotten or be. heard structures. or. if you. can hear those you. may say. your story or who. write what i. care. for. i.

i.

more. more more. more. more.

more more more maung maung may be an. old look. to. the morning. ok martin you're broadcasting live from washington d.c. . see coming up today on the big picture.

that. wealthy british.

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