currently there are over one hundred forty billion gallons of coal slurry contained in more than one hundred pound ments in west virginia alone the total quantity of coal slurry in the rest of southern appalachian. on december twenty second two thousand and eight 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 cleanup 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 valuable 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 hubbub 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 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 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 wiley has formulated a new plan for pennies a promise. our government do it or a local school board and 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 should come to this and we can't get nothing done for children to. be. if. we're going to watch the charleston west virginia or should we 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 applying to chapman in our communities as far as mountain top removal what it's doing to those 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 tightening our kids our future by our tomorrow he should die almost up important are just march fourth don't have them are. live at least. burning of coal those 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. 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 to finally say ok we want to call in the two thousand election in 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's 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 stocked all the regulatory agencies with with

former coal industry lobbyists or executives by two thousand and one the bush administration made a flight 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 let's go with a special bond to our state please and gentleman 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 fuel 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. 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 real repairing a machine that digs for coal. 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 a cold coming to my property here me and my family members and they tell me that we don't give a damn about people in our we don't give a damn about the people on top of that mountain all we care about is property we will make and and that was the dollar i would have bought and the. know we were playing there and this is vice president cultural reduction and using kids from

massey coal 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 a clear left family cemetery and if one thousand nine hundred ninety eight and now on the third arrest eighteen and all when i started this i couldn't get to people to listen now even my own family. now you know have i turned a corner how crest of the knob one day or that was there was before the snowy 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 limits 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 league granted. on memorial day of two thousand and six ships 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 order around and different things going on and. to me a safety. zone and probably count forty zero goaded to get to comb even under 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 seem to be. not heard it's with you. the first waterhole i respond then in my life was up then how on. the water was not there now we've got a seven six seven hundred foot high wall there now. my mama give me birth. give me

life. well. you can get to the cemetery through their own hands going around. i used to be a road over here. for one right here. one i hear. your people are taking part in history if the cemetery been here for two hundred seventy years and never had as many people wanted in the last hundred fifty years last time on top of come through here they wouldn't or gentleness or kind. the superguy minister here i will tell you our house they sent to my. shows and these people for a rainy fifth graders the first time in julian come here four years ago we had caves phones and had dates on them they're no longer here if they meant say that we

came and got him. and it's not the case and in order to boost our own going to say on johnson our side is we're just not been heard here for alone 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 plan were found to be an accurate. live.

nobody would stand that. nobody would stand up to the street. i stand up for my grandma or fly i stand up at two hundred forty two as well i'll represent the old philip morris for elementary and i will stay and and i will fight and i will do whatever it takes to get something done for those children that day is who has lost him no more alex will you know that it. was such. an. he was. in the league.

will be locked up for. the little league. but if he says. well no i couldn't talk to as many folks as i have along the way that a lot of folks shows for revenge a kind of a lot of folks on the issue we've raised a little money for the new school only issue in one of our goals for us is to come here and hopefully make a sandberg and off field we have conflict all three of them and i believe a scope 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. for her. record. that. was. really hot. and the real. first three years for the rights of those children that i see it's raining outside right now are saying tell you about smudge day i'm sorry it. doesn't mean anything to you we've pretty too young for three years of superman stood there

i think when these can't be used to be accountable for. what i want to ask you to do i'm going to go back to the back corner we need to clear this way because people got a good back and forth forward. i'm sure more work. to get a new school that's the one you're broke your i ain't playing here i'm telling you we're not budging there's more coming. your. way around why your kids just might know what they're offering their field will go to market rate of meeting a whisper in the air while it is right now we want results the day we want our kids

. to. share. wired to our kids there. for company and a coat for you. there on the wrong side of the mound. you know we are the cradle that bring that money out that have to look far more where you can be took care of us are still our children. before the state get involved in this you such as whether school should be the new school should be built a decision post first we have to look. i've heard the low. the school board with the decision on a new school that march forward before a vote of the people of raleigh. so they can determine the final outcome from i'm still so i. can all i could i hope i am corgi.

birds for you. if. you. can't hear anything and read and may say. your story or who. write what i think. i. was.

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going to get. a. forty two thousand americans die each year from car accidents only a thousand. seven hundred thousand people murdered and thirty two thousand will kill themselves cancer in all its forms kills five hundred sixty thousand of us a year part is easy even more devastating it kills over eight hundred seventy thousand americans every year.

the observed nature and discover its beauty. and. communicate with the want to. test yourself and become free and. see what nature can give you the. welcome into the future couldn't soon be splash in the world of politics business questions in advance science into i-ching products. i don't understand. is this going to be followed russian invaders to eat your betters abroad and their fake breakthrough back home sunlight on stone on technology update here. we've got the future covered.

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in india in the movie joyce the photo of the gateway hotel the grand imperial tried.

to go and. read the. photo treat. today's top stories on the review of the week from. the recovery rescuers are preparing to lift the russian crew from the bottom of the volga river. claiming around one hundred thirty lives. relatives and investigators are all looking for answers as to why the ship sunk so we'll bring you all the details from the recovery site in just a moment. the apologies keep coming in. for the. british papers. detained by police. banking on change libyan rebels now full diplomatic recognition from washington with. assets frozen in the u.s.

. intercontinental cash crunch america faces up to the possibility of default europe's debt crisis. you're watching the. main headlines of the past week and the latest developments it's been described as the biggest disaster in russia's modern history in the space of just three minutes a pleasure cruiser with two hundred eight people on board went down in the taking over. half of its passengers with it nearly a hundred thirty people were killed many of them children a week later the operation to raise the ship from the bottom is underway is. now reports the bulgaria is still under the water at the moment behind me you can probably see the tops of two enormous cranes that have been brought up from further

downstream and then attach to them or is it an enormous cable that goes down and is threaded underneath the ship and that cable is going to be used first of all at the moment divers and the crane teams are in the process of trying to right to the ball garrett was leaning on his left side and then once they've righted it they'll be able to start to lift it up a lot of the complications that divers are facing are due to the way under speed that the ship sank. firstly the fact that it's on its left side will mean that divers will have to go under that left side as it's righted first of all to check that the ship is structurally sound to be ready to be raised and also to try and look for some of the fifteen bodies which have still to be accounted for which still haven't been found then once they start to raise the ship divers are going to have to first of all try and find essentially the hole to let in all the water and some of the ship once they have found out they'll want to seal that hole.