WEBVTT

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[MUSIC]

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-I don\'t think people understand
where electricity comes from.

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I think most people feel it\'s an entitlement.

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It’s contained in the Bill of Rights
and where everybody\'s entitled to it

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and we don\'t need to worry about
where it comes from

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because every time
I flip the switch it comes on.

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[MUSIC]

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-In the heart of Appalachian coal country

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amid some of
America\'s most biologically diverse forest

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stands Coal River Mountain.

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-Coal River Mountain is
our last great mountain here

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in the Quarry Valley
that hasn\'t been blasted to ashes.

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-I know that we live in
a very intelligent country

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that has the ability to create energy
without blowing up mountains.

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-These coal companies are absolutely raping
and stealing the land, water,

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and air that all of us thought was ours.

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-People have had enough
and they\'re standing up to the coal company.

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-The greatest reform
of the coal mining industry

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is being pushed by citizen activists.

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The fight over Coal River Mountain
is a fight about democracy.

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-I feel there\'s a huge crime going on
and I have a right

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as a citizen to get in the way of
a crime taking place and that\'s what I did.

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[MUSIC]

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-My name\'s Maria Gunnoe. I\'m from Bobwhite,
in Boone County, West Virginia.

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In the southern part of West Virginia.

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I live in between two mountains.

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You\'ve got two huge mountains that come to
the middle and the middle is called a hollow.

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Our property is at the very mouth
of the hollow where the mountains meet.

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My grandfather was a coal miner
and my father was a coal miner and I,

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well, a lot of the people in my family
has been coal miners.

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I have two brothers
that currently work as coal miners.

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[MUSIC]

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Jupiter Coal Company started in 2000.

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They cut the trees down and then

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they started pushing the--

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what they call the overburden
which is everything except the coal

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over on top of the trees

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and then they started blasting.

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-Oops, there it is, there it is.

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Bastards.

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Now, where is it going to come
right down on top of us.

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-Massey went up there
and blew up half the damn mountain

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and these boulders come down through here
and this one landed right here.

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Maybe 150 from our garden.

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My cousin\'s house is directly below that

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and with that comes
all this dust down through here.

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This is sandstone you can see
the glass in it and that\'s silica

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that turns into silica dust
and it goes in your lungs

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and that\'s called silicosis
and people die of that.

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-Wanting to get the word out

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West Virginian activists contacted
Bobby Kennedy, Jr.,

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a writer, broadcaster,
an environmental lawyer.

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-I recently flew over the coal fields
in the Appalachians

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and I saw something that
if the American people could see it

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there’ll be a revolution in this country.

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-Charleston [?] skyline seven,
three, five, five, tango leaving 2,900.

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-We are cutting down
the Appalachian Mountains literally.

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-The whole mine goes all way back 10 or 12 miles.

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Absolutely gigantic.

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-They’re blowing the tops off the mountains
to get at the coal seams beneath.

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-Coal is sort of like a layer cake.

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You\'ve got a layer of rock,
a layer of coal, a layer of rock, a layer of coal

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and they just keep this process up

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until they literally reduce
the mountain to rubble.

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-They detonate 2,500 tons
of explosives every day.

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An explosive power the size
of a Hiroshima bomb once a week.

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[BLAST]

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-You feel you\'re under attack.

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It\'s happening two or three times
a day every day.

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[ROARING]

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-Sometimes they\'ll take
as much as 800-900 feet off a mountain

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and everything that was the mountain
it\'s just dumped down in the valleys.

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[ROARING]

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It’s the cheapest way to do it and
it\'s the most highly profitable way to do it

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and that\'s why they\'re doing it.

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-Mountaintop mining is an accepted means
stated in the federal law

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and has been occurring here in West Virginia
for the last 35 years

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and it\'s dictated by the geology,
the natural geology,

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and as the coal seams lack close
to the top of the hill

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and it\'s the most efficient way to remove
the coal from the mountains.

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I think the groups that are opposed to that

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and use that as the icon
for their opposition are using it

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because of
the emotional impact it has on people

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when they see a picture
of an active operation

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which is nothing more than
a construction site that is unfinished.

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Now, to go back and take a picture
of that mine site after it\'s completed

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is a much different picture.

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They return that same dirt and rock

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to the mountaintop
and reconstruct the mountaintop.

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This is what the coal industry
is bragging about.

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This is as good as it gets.

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Theoretically this is supposed to be an oak
and maple forest.

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-That’s right.

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-But in reality
this grass isn\'t even going to last.

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-No. What the regulatory authority
does is allow them

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to substitute the rock
for the original topsoil.

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-This is what the state of West Virginia
calls a soil substitute.

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-That\'s right.

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-The extraordinary thing about
this is how many lies they have to tell

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in order to make this whole fiction work.

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-That’s right.

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-They have to say that this is a forest.

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They have to say that this is soil

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and the amazing thing
is how many people believe them.

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-That\'s right and I\'ve been astonished
over the years

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at how many people actually believe
that this is truly reclamation.

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-This is their version of a headwater stream.

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-They call this a stream substitute,
but that it really hasn\'t in life in it.

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-It’s plumbing.

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-That\'s all it is.

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-It’s plumbing. It’s not an ecology.
It’s a plumbing job.

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-That\'s right.

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-It concentrates the flow of water

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and that\'s one of the reasons
we have flooding problems downstream.

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[THUNDERSTORM]

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-About 4:30 in the evening it started raining
and it was pretty heavy rain.

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I think if we ended up with four
and a half inches of rain in four hours.

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There was nothing there to absorb
the rainfall

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and when it came washing off
the rock back here,

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it come washing off in a torrent.

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It turned this whole tiny stream
into a raging river that ran,

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well, it cut a chasm through
our property 67 feet wide.

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Myself and my husband and my children
were basically trapped

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in a flooding hollow with no way out.

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The flooding happens all through the valley.

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It happens every time it rains.

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The coal company engineer came right here
into my yard.

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He kept saying this isn\'t our fault.
This is an act of God.

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He continuously said this is an act of God.

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There was an act of God
that took place at night

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and it didn\'t have nothing to do
with that water.

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If it wasn\'t for the good Lord above me,
my family wouldn\'t be here

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and it really infuriated me when he said that.

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I believe that\'s a big part of the fuel
that keeps my fire burning.

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-I was born about a mile from here--
two miles from here at Levels,

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West Virginia in a coal camp.

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My dad worked for the coal company
and we lived in a coal company house.

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Came back here in 2000, decided
we just want to be back in the mountains

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and just live
a nice peaceful life fishing, honey,

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living a good life.

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Having a garden. Back to my roots

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and I got back here.
I started hearing these blasts.

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[BLASTS]

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The Coal River Valley is very narrow valley
and on the right side is Cherry Pond Mountain

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and it is being totally annihilated.

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That’s Twilight, that’s Lindytown,
that\'s Montcoal, that\'s Shumate.

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The entire Cherry Pond Mountain which was a
duplicate of Coal River Mountain at one time

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has been totally destroyed.

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Directly below that are our communities
from Whitesville to Glen Daniel,

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25 mile stretch of small communities of
people that\'s lived here for 200 years or more.

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Coal River Mountain is on the left side.

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Now, on the other side of Coal River Mountain

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is Kayford Mountain
which has been totally wiped out.

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It is gone.

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Coal River Mountain stands as a buffer.

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It’s our only buffer to protect us
from getting totally overwhelmed

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with blasting dust and poison water
and everything else.

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We have to have that mountain
or we have to leave.

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[MUSIC]

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-We\'re down here on these folks property

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and we\'re going to sample their stream
below this mine site.

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Heavy metals are one
of the worst things we see.

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Lead and arsenic and other elements
that people know about,

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but also selenium and some
of these other elements

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that people really don\'t know about

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and really we as scientists don\'t know
that much about.

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0.484 total dissolved solids.

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They look like coal, but it\'s not.

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Manganese deposition on these rocks

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and that\'s because there\'s a lot of manganese
in the water coming out of this valley fill.

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Look at my fingers there.

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In this area it\'s ruined their wells.
It’s ruined their springs and it\'s--

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their very existence.

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The number one thing that humans
or any other organism needs to exist is water.

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[MUSIC]

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-My name is Jennifer Hall Massey.

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I live in a small town
we call Prenter, West Virginia.

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Where we\'re standing now is actually
the center of the cluster

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of brain tumors that we experienced.

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There have been multiple brain tumors
throughout the community,

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but there were six in particular
that lived very close together.

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Right down the road here in the end
of the mobile home park we lost my brother.

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He was 29 years old.

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The gentleman that lived directly beside
of him was in his mid-50s

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and he also lost his life to the brain tumor.
His name was Ronald Smith.

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There was an infant that lived two homes
behind my brother,

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the little Jones girl who was born
with a cancerous brain tumor.

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Her neighbor four-year-old, Tasha Brown,
also developed a brain tumor.

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She did survive.

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Now to the right of us here we lost--
we call him Little John.

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His name was John Donoghue, II.

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He lived in this home right here
and he was 37 years old.

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He was the first that our community lost
to a brain tumor.

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National average for brain tumor is one
to 100,000 and we had six that live side by side.

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The only thing we have in common is
the fact that we all have well water.

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This filter is about two weeks old.

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It’s supposed to last six months.

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Normally we get about three to four weeks out
of a filter before they completely stuck up.

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-Millions of people get their water supplies

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from the headwaters coming off
the Cumberland Plateau bioregion.

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Mountaintop coal mining is literally
threatening the water supplies

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of tens of millions of people in one
of the fastest-growing regions

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in the United States.

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-That materials not coming out.
It’s in the human water supply.

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-The water and the fish are not owned
by the governor or the Fisheries Department.

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They’re owned by the people.
Everybody has the right to use it.

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This is ancient law.
It goes back to Roman times.

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It was in the code of Justinian.

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When Roman law broke down
in Europe during the Dark Ages

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you saw the feudal kings,
the local Lords privatizing the commons.

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For example in England King John
said the deer

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which were once a critical food source
for the poor can no longer be hunted

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by the poor only the nobility can hunt them.

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That’s what got him in trouble with Robin Hood.

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Those thefts,
those privatizations of the public commons

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so outraged the public
that they confronted King John of Runnymede,

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and they forced him to sign the Magna Carta

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which was the beginning
of constitutional democracy on our planet.

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[MUSIC]

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The law in this country up until the 1870s

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was that if somebody built a factory
near your home

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and smoke from that factory got into
your house as little as one day a year,

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you had an absolute right to shut down
that factory

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because that was a violation
of your property rights and of the commons,

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but those laws were eroded during the
industrial revolution by people who said,

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\"This is the future of America,
industrial growth,

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and we need to make it as easy as possible
for industry to flourish.

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We\'re going to allow people to pollute.\"

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-This water is not possible to be used
by any living creature of any kind.

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-I remember what it was like before [?].

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I remember the Cuyahoga River burning.

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I remember what the airs smelt like
in Washington DC at that time

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which wasn\'t even industrial city
and it stacked.

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This accumulation of the insults in 1972
of 20 million Americans out onto the street.

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A large public demonstration
in the United States history

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demanding that our political leaders
return to the American people

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ancient environmental rights
that had been stolen

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from our citizens over the previous 80 years.

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Politicians responded,
Republicans and Democrats, got together.

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Richard Nixon created EPA

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and signed a Clean Air Act,
the Clean Water Act into effect.

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We wrote 28 major environmental laws
over the next 10 years

00:19:55.040 --> 00:19:58.280
that protect our air and water
and endanger species and food safety.

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-It was a bipartisan era.

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We couldn\'t have gotten
this strong legislation

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without strong bipartisan support.

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I think that the Clean Water Act
when it passed Congress in 1972,

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I think it was a virtually unanimous vote

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and almost all of the major legislation
that we rely on today,

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really started in the early ‘70s.

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-Over the next 20 years,

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the coal industry, increasingly ignored
provisions in the Clean Water Act.

00:20:42.020 --> 00:20:46.440
-The Clean Water Act said
that you cannot put waste in the waters

00:20:46.440 --> 00:20:47.770
in the United States of America.

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Therefore mountaintop removal
was totally illegal

00:20:52.420 --> 00:20:56.130
and when they did try it
they usually got it slammed back at them.

00:20:56.280 --> 00:20:59.280
-We hadn\'t really been having
some great success here with litigation

00:20:59.280 --> 00:21:02.930
and with grassroots movement
opposing mountaintop removal

00:21:02.930 --> 00:21:06.420
and the coal industry became very nervous
about the upcoming election

00:21:06.840 --> 00:21:10.400
and threw its weight behind George Bush
in an extraordinary fashion.

00:21:10.600 --> 00:21:13.240
-We\'re going to be watching the traffic
around the Washington area

00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:15.420
and basically what we can tell you
right now downtown

00:21:15.420 --> 00:21:17.510
don\'t even think about driving west--

00:21:18.020 --> 00:21:21.040
-This Inauguration Day Parade
and swearing-in,

00:21:21.040 --> 00:21:23.370
is this more unusual
because of the number of protesters--

00:21:23.370 --> 00:21:26.020
-We don\'t yet know how many people
have been arrested.

00:21:37.750 --> 00:21:40.840
-Bush was quoted as saying soon
after his election

00:21:40.840 --> 00:21:43.570
in 2000 this was a coal-fired victory

00:21:44.840 --> 00:21:49.240
because of the huge increase
in coal industry contribution.

00:21:49.240 --> 00:21:52.170
Something like six or eight times
what they given the previous election.

00:21:53.440 --> 00:21:56.370
-I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear.

00:21:56.370 --> 00:21:58.600
-I, George Walker Bush do solemnly swear--

00:21:58.600 --> 00:22:03.620
-The top 100 posts, environmental posts,
were virtually all occupied

00:22:04.040 --> 00:22:08.080
by lobbyists from the worst of the worst,
of the worst polluters

00:22:10.080 --> 00:22:12.680
in the Department of Commerce
which regulates Fisheries,

00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:16.970
Department of Energy,
Department of Agriculture, the EPA, the FDA,

00:22:16.970 --> 00:22:20.330
the Department of Interior
and even the relevant divisions

00:22:20.330 --> 00:22:21.420
of the Justice Department.

00:22:23.150 --> 00:22:27.080
As head of public lands, Steven Griles,
mining industry lobbyists,

00:22:27.080 --> 00:22:30.550
who believes
that public lands are unconstitutional.

00:22:34.310 --> 00:22:37.460
-Steven Griles lobbied in favor
of mountaintop removal

00:22:37.460 --> 00:22:38.950
before he came into office.

00:22:39.310 --> 00:22:41.080
We knew the game was over.

00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:47.370
[MUSIC]

00:22:47.970 --> 00:22:51.240
-Peabody Coal and Massey Coal
and lobbyists for the industry

00:22:51.550 --> 00:22:55.020
met in the back doors of
the Interior Department with Steven Griles

00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:57.950
and they rewrote one word.

00:22:58.040 --> 00:23:01.910
The interpretation of one word
of the Clean Water Act,

00:23:01.910 --> 00:23:07.350
the definition of the word fill to change
30 years of statutory interpretation.

00:23:07.840 --> 00:23:11.110
-Instead of the primary purpose,
the Bush administration changed

00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:13.910
the phrase primary purpose
to the word effect.

00:23:15.440 --> 00:23:19.000
What was permissible after that
was anything that had the effect

00:23:19.480 --> 00:23:21.200
of creating dry land.

00:23:23.750 --> 00:23:27.930
Of course, putting garbage in water
has the effect of creating a dry spot,

00:23:30.530 --> 00:23:34.170
and that legalized mountaintop removal
for the first time.

00:23:39.060 --> 00:23:45.860
-Robert Kennedy, Jr. is lending his voice
to the fight against mountaintop removal.

00:23:46.060 --> 00:23:47.750
Here’s the article about it.

00:23:48.420 --> 00:23:50.510
My waitress job kept me afloat

00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:54.640
while I volunteered with many, many,
many different organizations

00:23:54.640 --> 00:23:58.510
to fight the destruction here
and our action for this time--

00:23:59.880 --> 00:24:04.680
I went to my state government thinking
they can\'t leave me like this.

00:24:04.680 --> 00:24:07.350
Somebody has to care about
what they\'re putting me through,

00:24:07.770 --> 00:24:10.260
and that what I found was
a lot of closed doors.

00:24:11.770 --> 00:24:16.200
-I called the governor\'s office and talk
with Matt Turner and I asked for a meeting.

00:24:16.970 --> 00:24:20.040
-Bo Webb has brought together
a group of local activists

00:24:20.040 --> 00:24:21.750
to plan a protest rally

00:24:21.820 --> 00:24:24.840
against the West Virginia Department
of Environmental Protection

00:24:26.950 --> 00:24:29.170
and he\'s asked Bobby Kennedy to help.

00:24:29.570 --> 00:24:30.280
-Hey, Marissa?

00:24:30.280 --> 00:24:31.280
-How are you doing?

00:24:31.280 --> 00:24:32.570
-Good. Good to see you.

00:24:32.570 --> 00:24:33.570
-Good to see you.

00:24:34.820 --> 00:24:35.860
-Did you pick a day?

00:24:36.570 --> 00:24:38.550
-We did. Yes, December 7th.

00:24:39.080 --> 00:24:40.860
-We have lobbied.

00:24:41.040 --> 00:24:44.200
We have written letters
through our officials with the agencies.

00:24:44.200 --> 00:24:45.770
We have made phone calls.

00:24:45.770 --> 00:24:48.020
We can\'t go to anywhere else, we\'re there.

00:24:49.020 --> 00:24:51.220
No’s one’s taking any action.

00:24:51.220 --> 00:24:53.910
No one’s intervening
so this is the people\'s intervention.

00:24:55.260 --> 00:24:58.400
What we hope to get out of this
is for the DEP to stop,

00:24:58.550 --> 00:25:00.620
revoke the permit, stop this.

00:25:00.620 --> 00:25:02.570
-I would love to come down for that.

00:25:02.570 --> 00:25:08.080
I don\'t know if I can make that day.
I\'d like to do it.

00:25:08.770 --> 00:25:12.970
-He\'s taken an issue in West Virginia,
but he doesn\'t have to be here for.

00:25:13.130 --> 00:25:17.460
Nobody expected Bobby Kennedy to come
and he keeps coming back on his own

00:25:17.750 --> 00:25:21.600
not for himself I think, but really
because he believes in helping this region.

00:25:24.220 --> 00:25:28.570
[CHEERS]

00:25:30.840 --> 00:25:34.660
-The rally takes place in Charleston,
the capital of West Virginia.

00:25:35.130 --> 00:25:38.350
Outside the headquarters of the Department
of Environmental Protection.

00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:41.820
-We’re here to save Coal River Mountain.

00:25:42.130 --> 00:25:44.530
We want the blasts to stop today.

00:25:44.950 --> 00:25:46.640
[CHEERS]

00:25:47.460 --> 00:25:51.200
-Coal companies have told
the miners their jobs are at risk.

00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:53.660
-You got the day off today?

00:25:53.910 --> 00:25:54.930
-Half a day to come down and--

00:26:00.910 --> 00:26:02.020
-Who’s coal?

00:26:02.020 --> 00:26:03.020
-Our coal.

00:26:03.020 --> 00:26:03.910
-Who’s mountain?

00:26:03.910 --> 00:26:04.800
-Our mountain.

00:26:04.800 --> 00:26:05.680
-Who’s job?

00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:06.680
-Our job.

00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:07.680
-Who’s Children?

00:26:07.680 --> 00:26:08.680
-Our children.

00:26:09.600 --> 00:26:13.860
-Good environmental policy
is identical to good economic policy.

00:26:14.370 --> 00:26:18.860
If we want to measure our economy
based upon how it produces jobs

00:26:18.860 --> 00:26:22.220
and the dignity of job over the generations,
over the long term.

00:26:24.220 --> 00:26:27.620
If on the other hand we want to do
what Massey coal

00:26:27.620 --> 00:26:29.680
and the big industry wants us to do,

00:26:29.910 --> 00:26:33.130
which is to treat the planet as
if it were business and liquidation,

00:26:33.530 --> 00:26:36.930
convert our natural resources
including the State of West Virginia

00:26:36.930 --> 00:26:42.080
to cash as quickly as possible of a few years
of pollution based prosperity.

00:26:42.330 --> 00:26:46.880
We can generate an instantaneous cash flow
and the illusion of a prosperous economy,

00:26:47.110 --> 00:26:49.280
our children are going to pay for our joyride.

00:26:49.970 --> 00:26:54.000
[CHEERS]

00:27:01.680 --> 00:27:04.570
I think, for me,
I was just dispositionally disposed

00:27:04.820 --> 00:27:06.020
towards activism.

00:27:08.280 --> 00:27:13.280
I made a decision when I was 10-years-old
to write a book about the environment.

00:27:13.970 --> 00:27:17.550
I never actually got around
to writing it till I was about 29,

00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:20.620
but I wrote a letter
to my uncle President Kennedy

00:27:20.840 --> 00:27:24.150
and I asked to come in and talk to him
about the environment.

00:27:27.600 --> 00:27:29.240
I bought him a pet salamander

00:27:30.660 --> 00:27:33.420
and he arranged for me to go
and interview members

00:27:33.420 --> 00:27:35.040
of his cabinet about the environment.

00:27:40.150 --> 00:27:43.480
When I was little Mclean,
Virginia was a rural paradise.

00:27:43.480 --> 00:27:45.400
It was horse farms. It was woodland

00:27:46.080 --> 00:27:49.550
and we spent every moment
that we could walking through the woods.

00:27:50.930 --> 00:27:53.480
Then one day the road builders came.

00:27:54.550 --> 00:27:57.950
They built
the four-lane highway through the woods.

00:27:59.730 --> 00:28:00.930
They covered the creek.

00:28:01.880 --> 00:28:03.750
They knocked down the mountain,

00:28:07.370 --> 00:28:13.620
and we looked at these people
as really as invaders and as criminals.

00:28:14.730 --> 00:28:17.570
We tried our best to stop them.
We’re only-- we were little kids.

00:28:17.570 --> 00:28:22.420
We were eight or nine years old
and we rolled the big concrete culverts down

00:28:22.420 --> 00:28:25.570
a hill away and we smash them and broke them.

00:28:28.080 --> 00:28:32.280
We got caught and I had to work all summer
with my brother to pay for the culverts,

00:28:34.020 --> 00:28:39.280
but I still had this feeling
that something was being stolen from me.

00:28:40.150 --> 00:28:44.330
[CHEERS]

00:28:45.730 --> 00:28:46.820
There’s a moral issue.

00:28:46.820 --> 00:28:50.820
We don\'t have a right to destroy something
that we cannot recreate.

00:28:51.310 --> 00:28:56.110
It was God who made these mountains and
it\'s Don Blankenship who is cutting them down.

00:28:58.260 --> 00:29:02.730
-Don Blankenship is
the chief executive officer of Massey Coal

00:29:03.280 --> 00:29:05.730
which has been the principal engine

00:29:06.330 --> 00:29:10.280
promoting the use of mountaintop
removal coal mining throughout Appalachia.

00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:14.460
-At Massey we produce more than coal.
We create opportunities.

00:29:14.460 --> 00:29:17.170
Opportunities
for American energy independence,

00:29:17.350 --> 00:29:21.460
opportunities for our members,
their families and for our communities.

00:29:21.460 --> 00:29:24.570
That\'s why Massey Energy
is expanding every day

00:29:24.730 --> 00:29:26.660
opening new mines every month.

00:29:27.040 --> 00:29:31.910
-It has been the single most
destructive coal mining company

00:29:32.370 --> 00:29:36.440
when it comes to Appalachian forests
in history.

00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:58.800
[MUSIC]

00:29:59.370 --> 00:30:01.510
-The most important thing
about Coal River Mountain

00:30:01.510 --> 00:30:03.770
is that the people
who live there want to stay there.

00:30:04.600 --> 00:30:06.370
They’ve been there for generations.

00:30:06.370 --> 00:30:11.510
They’re attached to that place
and it\'s either them or Massey

00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:14.860
and Massey has been winning for a long time.

00:30:15.220 --> 00:30:18.730
[MUSIC]

00:30:19.750 --> 00:30:21.130
-My name is Ed Wiley,

00:30:21.910 --> 00:30:25.000
I\'m 50-years-old. I live here
in the Coal River Valley.

00:30:26.060 --> 00:30:30.440
I work for a subcontractor
on your mountain top removal site jobs.

00:30:31.170 --> 00:30:34.240
I was on every Massey site
in the state of West Virginia.

00:30:34.730 --> 00:30:38.260
I\'ve helped build these slurry impoundments,
build the roads,

00:30:38.460 --> 00:30:43.440
move their heavy equipment anything to do
with the outside, I\'ve had my hands in.

00:30:44.730 --> 00:30:50.970
At that time, I didn\'t realize that
my granddaughter was in danger.

00:30:53.930 --> 00:30:56.420
I was told to come to the school [?] was sick.

00:30:57.510 --> 00:31:02.240
I looked over at her to check her seatbelt
and seeing that she was just discolored

00:31:02.240 --> 00:31:05.880
and her nickname is Possum.
I said, \"Possum, buddy are you okay?\"

00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:10.080
She turned and looked at me
and the tears was just pouring down

00:31:10.080 --> 00:31:12.310
that little girl\'s face. She says, \"Gramps,

00:31:12.840 --> 00:31:15.020
these coal mines are making us kids sick.\"

00:31:15.950 --> 00:31:18.680
-There\'s people who worked in the school
who got cancer, right?

00:31:19.240 --> 00:31:21.530
-Yes, we\'ve lost four teachers

00:31:21.710 --> 00:31:24.620
and I believe it’s one student
never made it to high school.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:26.000
Died of cancer.

00:31:26.570 --> 00:31:28.020
It’s the coal loading silo.

00:31:28.200 --> 00:31:31.280
You see the coal mining conveyor belt
going up to it.

00:31:31.910 --> 00:31:34.440
I\'ll shovel too many
a day underneath these coal belts.

00:31:34.710 --> 00:31:36.840
I know how much coal piles off of them.

00:31:37.310 --> 00:31:40.330
Everything that\'s floating
in the air here off of that silo

00:31:40.330 --> 00:31:44.550
is being sucked into that school
from its ventilation system.

00:31:45.660 --> 00:31:47.330
That’s your coal dust.

00:31:47.730 --> 00:31:49.130
That’s your dust.

00:31:49.600 --> 00:31:52.640
-That\'s what the inside of the kids lungs
are going to look like too.

00:31:55.570 --> 00:32:00.000
-The silo is part of a coal preparation
complex owned by Massey Energy.

00:32:01.860 --> 00:32:05.130
Perched behind the elementary school
is an impoundment,

00:32:05.750 --> 00:32:06.950
a man-made lake.

00:32:07.640 --> 00:32:10.660
It holds the waste
that\'s created by washing coal

00:32:10.660 --> 00:32:12.530
before it\'s shipped to power plants.

00:32:14.770 --> 00:32:18.710
-Behind this wall
we\'ve got 2.8 billion gallons of sludge.

00:32:18.950 --> 00:32:22.860
It’s got heavy metals, arsenic,
uranium. It’s radioactive.

00:32:23.110 --> 00:32:26.880
It’s basically everything
that\'s bad about coal, concentrated.

00:32:26.880 --> 00:32:32.420
It\'s coal toxin concentrate and this wall
is most likely just made out of earth,

00:32:33.350 --> 00:32:36.910
wet earth because the water
is percolating through it.

00:32:37.280 --> 00:32:40.550
It’s basically like the levees
in New Orleans that broke

00:32:41.170 --> 00:32:43.910
only there\'s 2.8 billion gallons
of sludge behind it.

00:32:48.020 --> 00:32:53.510
-This is Buffalo Creek five weeks ago
it carried with it death and destruction.

00:32:54.880 --> 00:33:00.440
-Impoundments can break
like at Buffalo Creek, West Virginia 1972.

00:33:01.640 --> 00:33:05.350
By the time the sludge settled
118 people were dead

00:33:06.440 --> 00:33:08.200
and over 4,000 left homeless.

00:33:09.420 --> 00:33:10.800
Seven were never found.

00:33:12.930 --> 00:33:16.930
In October 2000 it happened again
in Martin County, Kentucky.

00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:23.710
An impoundment owned by Massey Energy
released over 300 million gallons of sludge.

00:33:24.860 --> 00:33:29.000
The spill was 28 times the size
of the Exxon Valdez.

00:33:30.260 --> 00:33:56.970
[MUSIC]

00:33:58.510 --> 00:33:59.440
-You can\'t believe it.

00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:04.660
Is this this huge, looks the hornet\'s nest
that\'s sitting over the school

00:34:07.310 --> 00:34:12.710
and there is no doubt
that a serious leak would, if it happened,

00:34:13.060 --> 00:34:14.480
wipe those kids out.

00:34:14.950 --> 00:34:17.640
-Explosives, coal dust, chemicals,

00:34:18.200 --> 00:34:20.730
and a leaking earth and dam pointed directly

00:34:20.730 --> 00:34:24.950
at them holding back 2.8 billion gallons
of toxic sludge.

00:34:25.330 --> 00:34:27.200
This is ridiculous.

00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:29.750
-Stop poisoning our children.

00:34:30.020 --> 00:34:31.480
-Massey hear us.

00:34:31.730 --> 00:34:35.480
-I called the school board
and they can’t get much reaction out of them.

00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:38.550
I called the health department
didn\'t get much reaction out of them.

00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:41.280
Called Channel 4 News.

00:34:41.820 --> 00:34:44.330
[CHEERS]

00:34:44.550 --> 00:34:46.550
-The sludge dam is up for renewal

00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:51.240
and Massey\'s applied to build another silo
identical to that monstrosity

00:34:51.240 --> 00:34:52.600
over there right next to it.

00:34:52.950 --> 00:34:54.310
-Right now you’re trespassing.

00:34:54.550 --> 00:34:56.950
-I\'ll tell you what,
you\'re trespassing on us every day.

00:34:57.710 --> 00:35:00.930
You’re damned dust and your chemicals
is coming down to my backyard every day.

00:35:01.060 --> 00:35:01.930
-Same old agenda.

00:35:01.950 --> 00:35:03.000
Same old agenda?

00:35:03.350 --> 00:35:06.330
-If you don\'t clear all this road here
you could be arrested for trespassing.

00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:09.220
-I guess you\'re going to arrest us.

00:35:09.860 --> 00:35:16.600
[CHEERS]

00:35:18.420 --> 00:35:20.480
-May 24th, 2005

00:35:20.910 --> 00:35:23.060
was the first time anyone was arrested

00:35:23.060 --> 00:35:25.950
for protesting
Massey\'s mountaintop removal mines.

00:35:26.330 --> 00:35:29.660
[CHEERS]

00:35:30.110 --> 00:35:31.480
-Whose jobs?

00:35:31.480 --> 00:35:32.770
-Ours.

00:35:32.770 --> 00:35:33.840
-Whose mountains?

00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:34.840
-Our mountains.

00:35:34.970 --> 00:35:36.370
-Whose Jobs?

00:35:36.370 --> 00:35:37.710
-Ours.

00:35:37.710 --> 00:35:39.170
-Whose freedom?

00:35:39.170 --> 00:35:40.170
-Ours.

00:35:40.170 --> 00:35:41.620
-Who’s America?

00:35:41.860 --> 00:35:43.150
-Ours.

00:35:43.730 --> 00:35:45.260
-The head of Massey Energy,

00:35:45.510 --> 00:35:48.600
Don Blankenship paid
for this Labor Day rally.

00:35:49.020 --> 00:35:49.800
-Thank you.

00:35:50.770 --> 00:35:53.350
I want to thank everybody
for inviting me here today.

00:35:53.550 --> 00:35:55.950
It only cost me about $1 million or so.

00:35:58.860 --> 00:36:03.620
Environmental extremists
are all endangering American labor.

00:36:04.110 --> 00:36:08.710
In fact, they are making American labor
the real endangered species

00:36:08.710 --> 00:36:11.750
as they tell us that their goal
is to save the planet.

00:36:12.240 --> 00:36:15.400
[CHEERS]

00:36:15.660 --> 00:36:18.800
-Don Blankenship likes to portray himself
as a champion

00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:20.420
of the working man in West Virginia

00:36:21.570 --> 00:36:24.880
and he talks a pretty good game, but really
nothing could be further from the truth.

00:36:25.860 --> 00:36:28.080
-There’s been a relentless push
by the mining industry

00:36:28.280 --> 00:36:30.370
to replace every miner with machines.

00:36:31.200 --> 00:36:33.350
The coal industry
accuses environmentalists

00:36:33.350 --> 00:36:35.260
of taking miners jobs from them,

00:36:35.260 --> 00:36:37.750
but really it\'s the mining industry
that\'s taken those jobs.

00:36:52.080 --> 00:36:57.620
[MUSIC]

00:36:59.170 --> 00:37:01.770
-If Don Blankenship
were really concerned about

00:37:01.770 --> 00:37:04.200
West Virginia workers and communities,

00:37:04.620 --> 00:37:07.950
he wouldn\'t be turning towns
like Lindy Town into ghost towns.

00:37:10.170 --> 00:37:13.620
-The coal company\'s ultimate goal
is to depopulate these valleys

00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:15.240
and turn them into wastelands.

00:37:15.860 --> 00:37:18.150
Quite honestly they\'ve got a good start.

00:37:19.950 --> 00:37:26.000
I can recall of right off the top my head
25 communities that has been depopulated.

00:37:29.170 --> 00:37:33.170
I\'ve attended this church
when I was a child with my family.

00:37:33.930 --> 00:37:36.600
When I first look at it I noticed
that the cross

00:37:36.600 --> 00:37:38.660
and the sign has gone off the front of it

00:37:39.240 --> 00:37:43.600
and that makes it
where it\'s not a church anymore.

00:37:43.600 --> 00:37:45.400
It makes it okay to tear it down.

00:37:52.930 --> 00:37:54.770
-You know some of the people from the town?

00:37:55.400 --> 00:37:58.460
-A lot of them is gone
and then I had a good friend right up here.

00:37:58.730 --> 00:38:02.310
His name was Jaden Smith.
He’s been here for generations. His family has.

00:38:04.620 --> 00:38:09.110
He swore that he wouldn\'t sell out, but
it got to a point where they left him no choice.

00:38:09.770 --> 00:38:13.020
Conditions was going to get so bad,
they couldn\'t live here.

00:38:14.640 --> 00:38:17.600
Last time I was up here he came out
and talked to us

00:38:17.600 --> 00:38:20.400
and he was in tears
because he had to leave his home place.

00:38:24.600 --> 00:38:31.550
-We don\'t have no one in this community
except me and my oldest son lives right there.

00:38:32.200 --> 00:38:38.530
I had been here since 1946
and this had become home.

00:38:39.260 --> 00:38:40.970
I really didn\'t want to move.

00:38:41.370 --> 00:38:50.350
I decided that I would endure
the tremendous lot of dust in the area,

00:38:50.910 --> 00:38:56.730
but it\'s nothing any more than what I endured
what time I was in the coal mines,

00:38:56.730 --> 00:39:01.860
you see and it\'s like going to war,

00:39:02.060 --> 00:39:05.770
you never know when that next numbers
are coming, it’ll be you.

00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:13.730
We’re going to stay until it gets
so rough that we\'ll have to move

00:39:13.730 --> 00:39:17.620
or either that big rock
in front of the mountain comes down

00:39:17.620 --> 00:39:18.950
and smashes us all out.

00:39:19.750 --> 00:39:21.400
-Good to meet you and good luck.

00:39:22.020 --> 00:39:25.600
-I never thought I\'d ever have a Kennedy
in my home.

00:39:26.020 --> 00:39:27.660
-It\'s a pleasure to meet you.

00:39:28.150 --> 00:39:31.840
-Never, never falter whenever
that would come true.

00:39:39.080 --> 00:39:42.840
-When my father was fighting strip mining
in Appalachia back in the ‘60s,

00:39:43.440 --> 00:39:47.260
I remember a conversation that I had with him
when I was 14-years-old

00:39:47.620 --> 00:39:51.170
where he said to me.
“They\'re not just destroying the environment,

00:39:51.170 --> 00:39:53.710
but they\'re permanently impoverishing
these communities

00:39:54.200 --> 00:39:57.220
because there\'s no way
they can regenerate an economy

00:39:57.220 --> 00:39:59.710
from these barren moonscapes
that are left behind.”

00:40:01.130 --> 00:40:05.420
[MUSIC]

00:40:06.420 --> 00:40:09.910
He said,
\"They\'re doing it so they can break the unions,\"

00:40:10.330 --> 00:40:11.860
and that\'s exactly what happened.

00:40:18.970 --> 00:40:21.600
When Don Blankenship
and as he called promised

00:40:21.600 --> 00:40:24.480
that there are strip mining
it\'s going to bring prosperity to the state.

00:40:24.750 --> 00:40:25.770
This is what they mean.

00:40:26.550 --> 00:40:27.710
This is a union hall.

00:40:30.420 --> 00:40:33.280
-When Don Blankenship began his career
in the early ‘80s

00:40:33.680 --> 00:40:36.310
virtually every mine was unionized.

00:40:37.260 --> 00:40:41.800
Now, virtually none are and Don more
than anyone else made that happen.

00:40:42.280 --> 00:40:46.710
[MUSIC]

00:40:49.020 --> 00:40:54.930
-In 1984 Massey set about systematically
breaking the United Mine Workers of America,

00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:59.680
closing down mines and reopening them
with non-union labor.

00:41:01.710 --> 00:41:07.170
[MUSIC]

00:41:08.770 --> 00:41:11.880
At that time, Don Blankenship
was a plant manager.

00:41:12.370 --> 00:41:16.660
-I always make the comparison it’s like a jungle
or a jungle for survival of the fittest.

00:41:16.860 --> 00:41:20.020
Non-union competitors
have a tremendous advantage

00:41:20.020 --> 00:41:23.600
and therefore they sell coal cheaper
and driving union coals out of business.

00:41:24.130 --> 00:41:26.330
[TRAIN HORNS]

00:41:26.820 --> 00:41:28.820
-Workers today are paid less.

00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:34.660
They have far fewer benefits and they
can be fired as easily as Don himself said

00:41:35.110 --> 00:41:39.260
as a tool that\'s broke
and as he reportedly said,

00:41:39.370 --> 00:41:42.910
\"If a tool\'s broke, just go out, get another one.\"

00:41:45.440 --> 00:41:48.950
-When I started work for Massey,
I was an ex-union guy.

00:41:50.910 --> 00:41:55.040
It was like walking
from daylight into darkness

00:41:55.370 --> 00:41:58.420
that\'s the difference
in working for a un-unionized

00:41:58.420 --> 00:42:00.110
and working for Massey operation.

00:42:03.620 --> 00:42:05.280
We [?] to quit now.

00:42:07.200 --> 00:42:09.860
We had to load so much footage the day
before we got home.

00:42:12.420 --> 00:42:14.680
You stayed in there until you got your 450.

00:42:15.150 --> 00:42:20.400
That’s what we had to get
and sometimes it would take 14-16 hours.

00:42:23.420 --> 00:42:28.930
-After 30 years as a coal miner,
Chuck Nelson salary was $15 an hour.

00:42:30.080 --> 00:42:33.660
Meanwhile, Don Blankenship salary
was skyrocketing.

00:42:34.200 --> 00:42:39.400
-Don got up to something like $33 million
in annual income, perks, and benefits.

00:42:39.620 --> 00:42:42.460
That’s not Darwinian. That’s just predatory.

00:42:43.480 --> 00:42:47.060
The same is true in the way he deals
with safety issues.

00:42:50.660 --> 00:42:54.280
-25 people now confirmed dead
after last night\'s explosion

00:42:54.280 --> 00:42:58.480
or yesterday afternoon’s
at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal.

00:42:59.930 --> 00:43:03.310
-The miners died in what
appeared to be a methane gas explosion

00:43:03.310 --> 00:43:04.710
1,000 feet underground.

00:43:05.480 --> 00:43:08.150
-He was a family man and he loved the Lord.

00:43:08.150 --> 00:43:11.080
We know where he\'s at, but we still want him back.

00:43:11.600 --> 00:43:13.910
-Monday\'s deadly explosion
has turned the spotlight

00:43:13.910 --> 00:43:17.040
on the questionable safety record
of the mine\'s owner Massey Energy.

00:43:17.040 --> 00:43:21.000
-The Upper Big Branch Mine
has a history of serious violations.

00:43:21.220 --> 00:43:24.950
-The Upper Big Branch Mine was cited
for 500 safety violations

00:43:24.950 --> 00:43:30.620
in 2009 and so far has paid $168,000 in fines.

00:43:30.950 --> 00:43:34.060
That’s less than Massey Energy earns
in an hour.

00:43:34.480 --> 00:43:38.820
-Profit over human life is what I think.
All they care about is that money.

00:43:40.420 --> 00:43:44.640
-It’s one thing to play tough
in the marketplace and it\'s another thing

00:43:44.640 --> 00:43:48.310
to violate safety
and environmental standards

00:43:48.600 --> 00:43:52.370
and run-up violations again
and again just because

00:43:53.330 --> 00:43:55.240
it\'s easier to make more money that way.

00:44:20.040 --> 00:44:22.730
-We\'re sitting here in Rock Creek,
West Virginia.

00:44:27.110 --> 00:44:31.510
Actually, we\'re sitting in the backyard
of Climate Ground Zero’s headquarters

00:44:31.710 --> 00:44:34.930
and I\'m the embedded journalist
with Climate Ground Zero.

00:44:37.550 --> 00:44:41.240
-People have come from all over the country
to join Climate Ground Zero

00:44:41.550 --> 00:44:44.400
in the battle to stop the mining
of Coal River Mountain.

00:44:58.930 --> 00:44:59.880
-It breaks the heart.

00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:01.970
What they’re doing to these mountains.

00:45:02.800 --> 00:45:03.770
-This is a crime.

00:45:03.950 --> 00:45:07.170
It’s a crime against America.
It’s crime against Appalachia.

00:45:07.620 --> 00:45:08.710
We\'re here to stop it.

00:45:09.350 --> 00:45:11.330
If only for one day only we’re going to stop it.

00:45:11.750 --> 00:45:14.040
-Came all the way here from DC

00:45:14.800 --> 00:45:18.880
and we get our power from this coal right here.

00:45:20.860 --> 00:45:24.420
We’re going to stop that
because I believe in clean energy.

00:45:29.840 --> 00:45:32.240
-It takes people outside the coalfields
to come in

00:45:32.240 --> 00:45:37.460
and stop this insanity
because the only job ever has been coal job

00:45:37.820 --> 00:45:43.170
and you do what the coal man says
or you don\'t have a job.

00:45:44.060 --> 00:45:46.800
Outsiders have to come in to stop this.

00:45:48.110 --> 00:45:49.860
-One year ago, Climate Ground Zero,

00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:53.220
helped begin what is now
a sustained campaign

00:45:53.220 --> 00:45:54.930
of non-violent civil disobedience.

00:45:55.020 --> 00:46:00.620
I think there have been two actions
per every month since February 2009.

00:46:04.820 --> 00:46:07.570
Approximately 140 people
have been arrested.

00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:10.420
-Where are you from?

00:46:10.730 --> 00:46:11.600
-Nashville.

00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:15.970
-People be respectful.

00:46:16.600 --> 00:46:18.040
-Get that camera out of here.

00:46:18.040 --> 00:46:19.530
-Sorry man, turn it off, turn it off.

00:46:20.970 --> 00:46:22.330
-It\'s a non-violent protest.

00:46:22.750 --> 00:46:24.260
-We\'re not going to harm the machines.

00:46:43.420 --> 00:46:51.660
[MUSIC]

00:46:55.710 --> 00:46:59.110
-Civil disobedience
has very clear parameters

00:46:59.910 --> 00:47:03.130
that you break the law, that you do it openly,

00:47:04.310 --> 00:47:08.110
and that you accept the consequences of it
and that you do it peacefully.

00:47:12.150 --> 00:47:14.240
-Bobby Kennedy has had a long career

00:47:14.240 --> 00:47:17.510
successfully suing companies
to stop them from polluting,

00:47:20.510 --> 00:47:23.970
but in 2001 when he tried to stop
environmental destruction

00:47:23.970 --> 00:47:27.600
on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques
he hit a roadblock.

00:47:30.060 --> 00:47:33.130
The US Navy was using the island
for bombing practice

00:47:34.020 --> 00:47:36.150
with the support of local authorities.

00:47:38.440 --> 00:47:44.530
-I thought I\'ve arrived at a place here
where democracy has been so trampled upon.

00:47:45.110 --> 00:47:48.420
That the law even though it\'s designed
to protect these citizens

00:47:48.420 --> 00:47:53.350
has no effect and I made a personal decision

00:47:54.170 --> 00:47:58.710
at this point I had a duty to do something
beyond the law.

00:48:02.150 --> 00:48:04.750
-He spent 30 days in a maximum-security prison.

00:48:08.200 --> 00:48:11.880
The campaign was eventually successful
and the bombing was halted.

00:48:19.060 --> 00:48:23.730
-Those times when we were arrested
it was always peaceful and friendly

00:48:23.730 --> 00:48:27.910
and civil from our side
and that non-violence is our protection.

00:48:28.860 --> 00:48:31.600
-My name is Laura Von Dohlen
and I\'m from Richmond, Virginia.

00:48:32.080 --> 00:48:36.310
I’m going to court because in November, myself
and three other people took over a drill rig.

00:48:37.040 --> 00:48:39.660
-We locked ourselves to the drill rig
on Coal River Mountain.

00:48:39.660 --> 00:48:41.570
There are four of us that were arrested.

00:48:42.680 --> 00:48:46.130
-We listen to the cops tell us
how we\'re throwing our life away

00:48:46.130 --> 00:48:51.220
and the usual for anyone
who\'s going to get arrested doing

00:48:51.220 --> 00:48:52.820
non-violent civil disobedience.

00:48:53.860 --> 00:48:54.840
-That’s how I see it.

00:48:54.840 --> 00:48:57.910
It’s committing a smaller crime in order
to stop the crime against humanity

00:48:57.910 --> 00:49:00.910
which is poisoning people\'s water
and destroying our ecosystem

00:49:00.910 --> 00:49:03.710
and just destroying the future
of many people\'s lives.

00:49:23.840 --> 00:49:29.510
[MUSIC]

00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:37.000
-The mother of all environmental problems
is the climate change issue.

00:49:38.020 --> 00:49:44.080
It’s very real. It\'s happening today
and at the core of the problem is coal.

00:49:47.660 --> 00:49:50.460
-Don, you\'ve said flat out
that global warming is a hoax.

00:49:51.040 --> 00:49:53.370
Are you being socially irresponsible

00:49:53.680 --> 00:49:56.600
by denying the science
behind global warming

00:49:56.600 --> 00:49:58.620
to benefit your company\'s bottom line?

00:49:59.370 --> 00:50:04.020
-Absolutely not. I really believe
that the climate is changing naturally

00:50:04.020 --> 00:50:07.150
and that the temperature
for the last eight or nine years

00:50:07.150 --> 00:50:10.800
has been cooling
and that the Arctic ice has been increasing

00:50:10.800 --> 00:50:12.110
and that there\'s a great deal

00:50:12.110 --> 00:50:14.260
of misunderstanding out there
about climate change.

00:50:14.440 --> 00:50:18.640
-The world\'s top climate scientists
say they are 90% certain human activities,

00:50:18.640 --> 00:50:20.930
pumping greenhouse gases
into the atmosphere

00:50:20.930 --> 00:50:22.820
are the cause of global warming.

00:50:22.950 --> 00:50:27.240
-It is an unequivocal set of pieces
of evidence

00:50:27.240 --> 00:50:32.060
that I can put before the world about
how fossil fuel use and land use change

00:50:32.660 --> 00:50:36.710
are fundamentally affecting the systems
on our planet.

00:50:43.860 --> 00:50:48.080
-The epicenter of the climate
change battle in the United States

00:50:48.570 --> 00:50:50.130
is Appalachian coal.

00:50:51.110 --> 00:50:57.110
The epicenter of the battle around
Appalachian coal is Coal River Mountain.

00:51:04.060 --> 00:51:07.480
-11 year old Kayla Taylor
is delivering pennies to the governor.

00:51:07.910 --> 00:51:10.400
She\'s helping to launch pennies of promise.

00:51:10.510 --> 00:51:15.660
It\'s a fundraising campaign for a new school
for MarshFork Elementary students.

00:51:16.060 --> 00:51:18.930
-We\'d like to see the governor,
we have some money to present him.

00:51:21.220 --> 00:51:23.330
-Some people are here from the MarshFork area.

00:51:23.730 --> 00:51:26.620
They want to see the governor
or someone in the governor\'s office.

00:51:33.260 --> 00:51:34.240
-I\'m so sorry.

00:51:36.910 --> 00:51:38.640
-I understand [?] kids everywhere.

00:51:38.660 --> 00:51:39.570
How are you all doing?

00:51:39.930 --> 00:51:40.910
Good to see you.

00:51:41.350 --> 00:51:45.570
-We have a young lady here from
MarshFork Elementary presenting something.

00:51:46.110 --> 00:51:47.200
-What\'s your name?

00:51:47.200 --> 00:51:47.880
-Kayla.

00:51:47.880 --> 00:51:48.570
-Kayla?

00:51:48.930 --> 00:51:52.510
How you doing in school? Good grades?
Studying hard?

00:51:52.660 --> 00:51:56.660
-Kayla has a little gift here for you.
This was our campaign.

00:51:57.930 --> 00:52:02.710
-Okay. Now let me just--
because I know we worked on this some.

00:52:02.710 --> 00:52:05.110
We talked about it before
and talked about the school, right?

00:52:05.110 --> 00:52:05.550
-Yes, sir.

00:52:05.550 --> 00:52:08.200
-I know the school. Where are we at
with the local board of education?

00:52:08.200 --> 00:52:11.620
-Let\'s just start all over, sir.
Let\'s back up a whole lot.

00:52:12.110 --> 00:52:13.570
We\'re not going to get them involved.

00:52:13.570 --> 00:52:16.530
You took a [?] protect away from West Virginia

00:52:17.530 --> 00:52:22.080
We\'re not going to do what we\'ve been doing.

00:52:22.350 --> 00:52:24.600
You put a price on our children\'s head.

00:52:25.310 --> 00:52:29.200
When you started this like vocation
in our state, you put a price.

00:52:29.200 --> 00:52:32.330
This is not an environmental issue,
this is a little human being.

00:52:32.710 --> 00:52:35.840
I have tried for two years to work with you
on this and I\'ve been Ignored.

00:52:36.550 --> 00:52:40.170
Now I don\'t mean to put you on the spot here,
sir, but enough is enough.

00:52:40.170 --> 00:52:41.860
We need to get this took care of.

00:52:41.860 --> 00:52:44.310
-I\'ll do everything in my power that I can.

00:52:44.310 --> 00:52:45.460
-What does that mean, governor?

00:52:45.460 --> 00:52:47.040
-That means I\'ll do everything in my power.

00:52:47.040 --> 00:52:48.220
-Guys, with that we got [?].

00:52:51.550 --> 00:52:55.080
-The current Governor of West Virginia
is a man of coal.

00:52:55.280 --> 00:52:57.840
He\'s a friend of coal.
I think he\'s called himself a friend of coal.

00:52:58.020 --> 00:53:00.110
-Thank you. I\'m Joe Manchin.
I\'m a friend of coal.

00:53:01.280 --> 00:53:03.110
[APPLAUSE]

00:53:03.770 --> 00:53:06.880
-I guess what it means is that he\'s bought
and paid for by the coal industry.

00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:09.510
-I\'ll like to find a person
who\'s not a friend of coal.

00:53:10.200 --> 00:53:13.150
If they\'re not, they should be
because coal does keep

00:53:13.150 --> 00:53:15.440
the lights on and we can burn it cleaner,

00:53:15.730 --> 00:53:18.000
we can burn it more environmentally
friendly,

00:53:22.200 --> 00:53:25.840
-Operations do not want democracy,
they want profits.

00:53:26.260 --> 00:53:31.150
The best way for them to get profits too often
is to use our campaign finance system,

00:53:31.150 --> 00:53:35.460
which is just a system of legalized bribery
to get their hooks into a public official,

00:53:35.910 --> 00:53:39.170
then use that public official
to dismantle the marketplace.

00:53:40.970 --> 00:53:43.530
[APPLAUSE]

00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:50.240
-We\'ve known for a long time that corporations
were the most important economic actors,

00:53:50.640 --> 00:53:54.860
but what we have seen so plainly
during this period of environmentalism

00:53:55.110 --> 00:53:59.680
is that corporations are also
the most important political actors

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:05.970
and are really the force
that governs our country now I\'m afraid.

00:54:08.860 --> 00:54:12.640
-The West Virginia department
of environmental protection or DEP

00:54:13.200 --> 00:54:16.280
is the agency charged
with enforcing the clean water act.

00:54:20.820 --> 00:54:25.200
-The DEP is not only failing in its duty
to enforce the environmental laws,

00:54:25.200 --> 00:54:27.130
it\'s actually gone over to the other side

00:54:27.130 --> 00:54:32.080
and consciously helps the coal industry
evade compliance.

00:54:33.080 --> 00:54:37.330
-The person who determines the behavior
of the regulatory agencies in the state

00:54:37.640 --> 00:54:40.280
is the democratic governor, Joe Manchin.

00:54:41.060 --> 00:54:44.060
-If we could permeate the retail mentality

00:54:44.350 --> 00:54:47.080
in every government worker
in the state of West Virginia

00:54:47.600 --> 00:54:49.800
and then when inspectors come out,
they\'re going to say,

00:54:49.800 --> 00:54:51.330
hey John, you got a problem here.

00:54:51.640 --> 00:54:54.680
Before I write you up with a violation,
here\'s what I think ought to do to fix it.

00:54:54.680 --> 00:54:56.550
Let\'s get together
and get our people together.

00:54:56.550 --> 00:55:00.420
I\'ll come back in a week or a month
or whenever the rotation time would be.

00:55:01.080 --> 00:55:05.220
Then if you\'ve made those changes
and try to make the changes,

00:55:05.220 --> 00:55:06.730
we\'re working in the right direction.

00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:09.440
-As long as the governor is giving the orders,

00:55:09.440 --> 00:55:11.310
the department
of environmental protection

00:55:11.310 --> 00:55:13.400
is not going to enforce
against the coal industry.

00:55:14.060 --> 00:55:17.110
There are hundreds of thousands
of violations of those permits

00:55:17.110 --> 00:55:19.200
by coal companies in this region every year

00:55:19.200 --> 00:55:22.280
and the state DEPs do nothing about them

00:55:22.570 --> 00:55:25.440
or slap the companies on a wrist
and actually protect them.

00:55:25.800 --> 00:55:27.350
-Anybody home? Hello.

00:55:27.350 --> 00:55:31.260
-DEP. Does anybody enforce the law here?

00:55:33.060 --> 00:55:33.860
Hello.

00:55:53.800 --> 00:55:55.620
-In July, 2007,

00:55:56.170 --> 00:55:59.570
Bobby Kennedy takes his case directly
to the coal industry.

00:56:00.510 --> 00:56:01.930
-Bobby Kennedy, how are you?

00:56:01.930 --> 00:56:03.110
-Nice to meet you.

00:56:03.220 --> 00:56:04.350
-Welcome Charleston.

00:56:07.680 --> 00:56:09.480
Did you ever get a chance to read my book?

00:56:09.770 --> 00:56:10.130
-No.

00:56:10.130 --> 00:56:11.280
-[?].

00:56:11.280 --> 00:56:13.000
-No. Should I?

00:56:13.510 --> 00:56:15.620
-Yes. Well, I think you\'re mentioned in there.

00:56:17.110 --> 00:56:18.770
-In a good way or a bad way?

00:56:22.220 --> 00:56:24.800
-I\'m critical of your position.

00:56:24.800 --> 00:56:26.530
-Well, I want you to tell me why.

00:56:26.750 --> 00:56:30.510
-How can Massey Coal have 60,000 violations,

00:56:31.170 --> 00:56:34.820
60,000 violations, and nobody
in the state came and stopped them?

00:56:34.820 --> 00:56:37.930
What if somebody robbed a bank 60,000 times?

00:56:38.440 --> 00:56:40.840
Every time they do that,
they\'re breaking the law.

00:56:41.060 --> 00:56:43.150
It\'s supposed to be a $31,000 penalty,

00:56:43.530 --> 00:56:47.480
but they\'ve never paid a single penalty
for violating the clean water act.

00:56:47.910 --> 00:56:51.330
How can you do--
What\'s the difference between robbing a bank

00:56:51.840 --> 00:56:53.400
and polluting a local waterway?

00:56:53.550 --> 00:56:57.170
It\'s worse than robbing a bank
because a kid could eat that fish

00:56:57.640 --> 00:56:59.570
and get sick and get cancer [?].

00:56:59.570 --> 00:57:02.880
-You got to slow down here just a little bit.
Give me a chance to respond.

00:57:04.620 --> 00:57:09.570
You guys from up North talk fast
and with all the adjectives and all the verbs,

00:57:09.570 --> 00:57:12.620
all the things that you\'ve used and contrived

00:57:12.620 --> 00:57:16.510
and written your book
and pretty opinionated.

00:57:17.710 --> 00:57:20.240
I\'ve got people that depend on mining coal.

00:57:20.240 --> 00:57:22.200
Now they\'re making your electricity for you.

00:57:23.620 --> 00:57:27.240
Are your people up there
that you live close to going to decide

00:57:27.240 --> 00:57:29.750
that they don\'t want to have their lights on
a half of each day?

00:57:30.330 --> 00:57:34.820
You can put all the economics aside
and the true worth of our industry

00:57:34.820 --> 00:57:36.800
is the fact that it\'s full of professionals

00:57:37.240 --> 00:57:40.860
and they\'re struggling and
attempting every day to do their job better

00:57:40.860 --> 00:57:43.110
than they did it yesterday.
That\'s the worth of it.

00:57:43.110 --> 00:57:46.460
I\'ve got 20,000 people that depend on
a mine working every day.

00:57:46.460 --> 00:57:49.200
I\'ve got another 25,000. I don\'t have them.

00:57:49.200 --> 00:57:51.600
They\'re out here in West Virginia
in 26 counties

00:57:52.370 --> 00:57:55.730
and they\'re doing their absolute best
to protect the environment.

00:57:56.130 --> 00:57:57.370
They grew up on the mountains.

00:57:57.680 --> 00:58:00.800
They grew up fishing at streams
where they\'re today mining

00:58:01.150 --> 00:58:02.530
and they want to preserve that.

00:58:02.530 --> 00:58:04.880
They want their children
and grandchildren to do that.

00:58:05.130 --> 00:58:06.880
They\'re confident they\'re doing it.

00:58:07.110 --> 00:58:11.080
-Listen, Bill, if you flew over that with me

00:58:11.080 --> 00:58:14.640
and you look me in the eye
and say we left it the way we found it,

00:58:15.910 --> 00:58:17.020
I cannot believe you.

00:58:17.020 --> 00:58:19.880
-According to the plan
that was filed and approved.

00:58:21.400 --> 00:58:24.910
-See, that\'s the whole thing
with your rationale is you say,

00:58:24.910 --> 00:58:28.910
\"Well, we did it according to the plan,\"
but any three year old--

00:58:28.910 --> 00:58:33.600
I could take this little boy up in
that airplane and look at those landscapes

00:58:33.600 --> 00:58:36.550
and I\'d say to him,
\"Is that the way it\'s supposed to look?\"

00:58:37.040 --> 00:58:41.260
He would say, \"Heck no.\" It is a moonscape up there.

00:58:41.420 --> 00:58:46.260
-I want you to answer the question,
how does it affect my men and women in Boone

00:58:46.260 --> 00:58:49.640
and [?] Galea in Logan County, West Virginia?

00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:52.570
Is it going to take their job?
If it is, you\'re on the wrong track.

00:58:52.880 --> 00:58:55.800
-If this is so good for the economy
of West Virginia,

00:58:56.040 --> 00:58:58.260
why is this one of the poorest States
in the nation?

00:58:58.510 --> 00:59:01.860
The people that stay have lost their jobs,
not because of environmentalist,

00:59:01.860 --> 00:59:03.820
they\'ve lost their jobs
because of the industry.

00:59:04.060 --> 00:59:06.350
Because the industry
decided to change its model

00:59:06.570 --> 00:59:09.620
and [?] strip mining
and a huge capital expenditures

00:59:09.620 --> 00:59:11.350
to get away from paying labor.

00:59:11.860 --> 00:59:13.460
Now the money that they\'re making,

00:59:13.460 --> 00:59:15.860
they\'re getting the same amount
of coal out of West Virginia

00:59:15.860 --> 00:59:18.730
with a lot more imposition of costs
on the people in that state,

00:59:19.060 --> 00:59:21.310
but the money is going up to Wall Street.

00:59:21.600 --> 00:59:26.820
-Don\'t preach about it. Be like my guys,
go build ponds and fix control drainage.

00:59:28.420 --> 00:59:30.710
Don\'t be a screamer out in the hallway.

00:59:31.680 --> 00:59:35.440
Go take care of it. That\'s what the people
that work in my industry are doing.

00:59:35.440 --> 00:59:38.530
They\'re practicing environmentalist.
They really are.

00:59:46.730 --> 00:59:50.420
-After years
of the West Virginia DEPs unwillingness

00:59:50.420 --> 00:59:55.880
to fully enforce clean water laws,
the federal EPA finally steps in.

00:59:57.110 --> 01:00:02.440
-In 2007, the EPA on a federal level
went after Massey

01:00:02.750 --> 01:00:09.000
and declared that it was guilty of systemic
violations of environmental standards.

01:00:10.950 --> 01:00:16.770
-Massey is allowed to settle
at 60,000 violations for only $20 million.

01:00:17.570 --> 01:00:20.310
Less than 1% of what the regulations call for.

01:00:24.130 --> 01:00:26.550
-Yet, in the months directly after that,

01:00:26.930 --> 01:00:32.800
Massey went on and ran up
another 8,500 violations. It’s breathtaking.

01:00:38.480 --> 01:00:42.640
-Meanwhile, Massey\'s mining operations
are getting dangerously close

01:00:42.640 --> 01:00:46.000
to the impoundment above
the MarshFork Elementary School.

01:00:51.800 --> 01:01:06.510
[CHANTING]

01:01:07.310 --> 01:01:14.950
-We want results today. We want our kids
in a safe new school, simple as that.

01:01:15.950 --> 01:01:18.130
Why is our kids any different?

01:01:20.770 --> 01:01:22.620
Because they’re in the coal fields?

01:01:23.640 --> 01:01:25.420
They’re on the wrong side of the mountain?

01:01:26.710 --> 01:01:36.510
[CHANTING]

01:01:37.150 --> 01:01:40.240
-Make no mistake,
if we have to take people in custody,

01:01:40.240 --> 01:01:42.060
we’re certainly prepared to do that.

01:01:44.770 --> 01:01:56.000
[JEERS]

01:01:58.930 --> 01:02:01.460
-Non-violence [?], it does work.

01:02:03.730 --> 01:02:10.550
It\'s a beautiful thing to be strong enough
to not get violent, not get angry.

01:02:14.530 --> 01:02:16.150
-She’s 91-years-old.

01:02:18.150 --> 01:02:22.150
-If people who are able to maintain
the discipline of doing that,

01:02:23.350 --> 01:02:27.530
grandmother who her wheelchair
is hauled out of the governor\'s office--

01:02:29.840 --> 01:02:32.420
These people who come
from all over the country

01:02:32.420 --> 01:02:34.770
to save the Appalachian Mountains,

01:02:35.440 --> 01:02:38.840
to me, they are heroes of American democracy.

01:02:42.280 --> 01:02:43.330
-Shame on you.

01:02:43.880 --> 01:02:45.710
You’ve got police [?].

01:02:59.750 --> 01:03:03.970
-Coal from the Coal River Valley is shipped
to power plants all over the country

01:03:04.860 --> 01:03:06.620
and most of it goes by train.

01:03:09.550 --> 01:03:12.950
Coal transportation is a massive business
for the railroad industry

01:03:13.460 --> 01:03:17.310
representing almost half of the major
freight carried in the United States.

01:03:20.260 --> 01:03:21.970
To protect this lucrative trade,

01:03:22.480 --> 01:03:25.600
the railroads make
considerable political investments.

01:03:27.800 --> 01:03:35.730
[MUSIC]

01:03:36.200 --> 01:03:40.060
The money spent by coal burning utilities
is greater still.

01:03:47.480 --> 01:03:50.710
-It\'s always been pay to play in Congress.

01:03:51.600 --> 01:03:55.710
In the case of coal, the corruption
has been particularly gross.

01:03:56.820 --> 01:04:01.510
The money substantial
and the political influence has followed.

01:04:02.970 --> 01:04:08.570
The government provides billions
of dollars in subsidies every year

01:04:08.570 --> 01:04:11.220
to the coal industry in the United States.

01:04:18.130 --> 01:04:22.770
The coal industry imposes billions
of dollars of health effects

01:04:23.550 --> 01:04:28.480
on citizens in literally every single state
in this country.

01:04:31.220 --> 01:04:34.680
-Well, what you have here is a modern power
generating facility.

01:04:35.220 --> 01:04:37.130
It\'s owned by American Electric Power.

01:04:37.130 --> 01:04:40.110
It’s located about 25 miles out of Charleston,
West Virginia.

01:04:40.640 --> 01:04:43.080
You’ve got the coal, you\'ve got the plant,

01:04:43.530 --> 01:04:49.370
you\'ve got the electricity grid beginning
and you\'ve got the ash that comes from the coal.

01:04:50.040 --> 01:04:52.350
You have
the entire industrial facility here

01:04:52.350 --> 01:04:54.860
that is converting coal
to modern electricity.

01:04:55.730 --> 01:05:00.280
You can see how clean it is. You can see at
the stack that there is no evident emission.

01:05:00.880 --> 01:05:05.200
We’re a very modern power plant
and this is what it\'s all about.

01:05:05.200 --> 01:05:09.000
This is about converting coal
to value-added electricity

01:05:09.000 --> 01:05:11.060
that goes into everyone\'s homes
and businesses.

01:05:13.150 --> 01:05:16.860
-Actually, the Kanawha River Power Plant
is far from modern.

01:05:17.420 --> 01:05:19.280
It was built in 1953.

01:05:20.200 --> 01:05:23.600
37 years before the Clean Air Act
regulated emissions.

01:05:25.280 --> 01:05:30.310
-The coal industry
continues to operate old dirty plants

01:05:31.440 --> 01:05:33.510
that should have been terminated,

01:05:33.880 --> 01:05:37.680
but they keep them going
because the regulations on the old plants

01:05:38.150 --> 01:05:41.800
are less demanding than they are
for the new plants.

01:05:43.280 --> 01:05:47.060
-This power plant has never been retrofitted
with pollution controls.

01:05:48.440 --> 01:05:49.800
In 2008 alone,

01:05:50.150 --> 01:05:55.660
the plant released over 40 million pounds of
pollutants including toxins like mercury,

01:05:56.170 --> 01:05:58.080
arsenic and lead.

01:06:02.130 --> 01:06:04.260
-I have three sons who have asthma.

01:06:04.620 --> 01:06:08.420
We know that asthma
attacks are caused by bad air,

01:06:08.420 --> 01:06:12.240
by ozone and particulates
and the principal source of those materials

01:06:12.240 --> 01:06:16.200
in our atmosphere are hundreds
of coal burning power plants

01:06:16.200 --> 01:06:17.530
that are burning coal illegally.

01:06:18.020 --> 01:06:19.750
It’s been illegal for 18 years.

01:06:19.750 --> 01:06:22.930
Under the Clean Air Act, they were supposed
to remove those materials

01:06:22.930 --> 01:06:25.080
from their emissions 18 years ago.

01:06:25.840 --> 01:06:31.800
In states where corporations can easily
dominate the state political landscapes,

01:06:32.150 --> 01:06:34.460
they were not required to comply with the law.

01:06:34.460 --> 01:06:39.110
There\'s hundreds of them
that are violating this critical law,

01:06:40.310 --> 01:06:44.150
but this is an industry that donated
enormous amounts to President Bush

01:06:44.170 --> 01:06:46.000
during the 2000 cycle.

01:06:47.110 --> 01:06:49.710
One of the first things
that the Bush administration did

01:06:49.710 --> 01:06:53.970
when he came into office
was to abolish the new source rule.

01:06:56.260 --> 01:06:59.800
This was the most important rule
in the entire Clean Air Act.

01:06:59.800 --> 01:07:04.400
It is the heart and soul of that statute
and that\'s the rule that required

01:07:04.840 --> 01:07:09.570
those coal burning power plants to clean up
their emissions 18 years ago.

01:07:12.860 --> 01:07:16.460
Now, I\'m going to be able to watch
my children gasping for air

01:07:16.460 --> 01:07:20.370
on bad air days
because somebody gave money to a politician.

01:07:22.060 --> 01:07:28.280
[MUSIC]

01:07:28.910 --> 01:07:31.330
-Even relatively new plants have problems.

01:07:36.350 --> 01:07:42.240
Shipping Port, Pennsylvania is home to the
Bruce Mansfield Power Plant built in 1976.

01:07:47.570 --> 01:07:48.750
-I’m Ron Burris.

01:07:49.680 --> 01:07:51.150
I\'m 61 years old.

01:07:52.930 --> 01:07:57.860
I live in Shipping Port and
the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant is behind me.

01:08:00.620 --> 01:08:02.860
My family moved here in 1951.

01:08:04.110 --> 01:08:07.550
I was a riverboat pilot, towed coal mostly.

01:08:08.620 --> 01:08:11.510
I used to tow coal
to the Bruce Mansfield Plant.

01:08:15.800 --> 01:08:21.240
I have a 2001 Monte Carlo
and I had it painted after a year

01:08:21.710 --> 01:08:23.820
which Bruce Mansfield paid for

01:08:25.260 --> 01:08:30.910
and I had it painted two years ago,
which Bruce Mansfield also paid for that.

01:08:32.770 --> 01:08:36.510
There would be pollution on it,
comes from the power plant

01:08:37.910 --> 01:08:41.460
that would burn through the paint down
to the metal.

01:08:47.080 --> 01:08:50.820
-It\'s not necessarily the soot
that you can see that\'s the problem.

01:08:52.150 --> 01:08:58.040
The big pieces of dust are too big
to get inhaled.

01:08:59.170 --> 01:09:02.310
The real problem is the tiny things
you can\'t see.

01:09:05.800 --> 01:09:09.620
Fine particles can contain heavy metals
that are very, very toxic.

01:09:10.000 --> 01:09:12.510
They can contain particles
that are radioactive.

01:09:12.840 --> 01:09:16.750
They can contain heavy metals
like arsenic and mercury.

01:09:19.640 --> 01:09:22.000
Metals and the brain don\'t mix very well.

01:09:22.750 --> 01:09:28.080
They actually have profound effects on the
development of intelligence in children.

01:09:28.400 --> 01:09:29.660
They affect behavior.

01:09:30.020 --> 01:09:32.420
They affect the ability of people
to have healthy children.

01:09:32.840 --> 01:09:35.330
-I spy something brown and yellow.

01:09:35.330 --> 01:09:38.510
-Brown and yellow, let me think,
could it be a signboard?

01:09:39.420 --> 01:09:39.770
-Yes.

01:09:40.080 --> 01:09:41.080
-Hey.

01:09:41.800 --> 01:09:45.060
My youngest son, James. He has autism.

01:09:46.730 --> 01:09:50.510
The numbers of autistic children
in this local area--

01:09:50.510 --> 01:09:55.710
my son, the class he\'s in, we have
a local elementary school right in this area,

01:09:56.020 --> 01:09:58.330
class he’s in there\'s eight.

01:10:06.080 --> 01:10:08.530
-I\'ve had some serious health problems.

01:10:08.530 --> 01:10:13.640
I had cancer in 2004 and I also have cancer now.

01:10:15.310 --> 01:10:38.060
[MUSIC]

01:10:39.730 --> 01:10:43.770
-Shortly after he was interviewed,
Ron Burris died of cancer.

01:10:45.750 --> 01:10:47.420
He was 63-years-old.

01:10:50.460 --> 01:10:53.820
Researchers are now embarking on
a 10-year study

01:10:53.820 --> 01:10:57.530
of the relationship between autism
and airborne pollutants.

01:10:59.710 --> 01:11:02.910
-As a parent, you sit there and wonder,
did I do this?

01:11:04.080 --> 01:11:06.370
Did I cause some of this?

01:11:06.370 --> 01:11:12.330
If I lived somewhere else,
would he have been healthier?

01:11:25.970 --> 01:11:29.880
-There are 600 coal-fired power plants
across the United States

01:11:32.040 --> 01:11:34.620
and their emissions
cover the entire country.

01:11:38.910 --> 01:11:40.260
-Coal emissions move.

01:11:42.000 --> 01:11:43.510
Pollutants don\'t need passports.

01:11:47.020 --> 01:11:49.950
-The EPA has announced that in 48 states,

01:11:50.310 --> 01:11:55.240
it\'s unsafe to eat many freshwater fish
due to mercury contamination

01:11:57.680 --> 01:12:00.840
and we are warned not to eat tuna more
than once a week.

01:12:02.770 --> 01:12:06.600
Mercury from power plants
has poisoned the oceans too.

01:12:18.420 --> 01:12:21.860
-Work to save Coal River Mountain. Do it.

01:12:22.150 --> 01:12:24.730
Let them hear your voice in
that building back there.

01:12:32.460 --> 01:12:33.620
-You’re doing something right.

01:12:33.660 --> 01:12:34.770
-Yes, let’s do something right.

01:12:34.770 --> 01:12:35.770
-The others aren’t right.

01:12:35.770 --> 01:12:36.770
-That’s what I\'m doing.

01:12:36.770 --> 01:12:37.930
- [?] but just not from here.

01:12:38.220 --> 01:12:39.730
This is our state. Our jobs.

01:12:40.260 --> 01:12:45.880
-I\'m living in a state where I can\'t eat the fish
because the mercury contamination [?].

01:12:45.880 --> 01:12:48.860
-It could be from the chemical plants.

01:12:49.040 --> 01:12:53.530
[?]

01:12:55.400 --> 01:12:58.350
-The mercury is coming
from coal burning power plants.

01:12:58.640 --> 01:13:00.110
That’s what the science says.

01:13:00.110 --> 01:13:02.240
-No. Coal has been used
since engines have been around.

01:13:02.240 --> 01:13:04.400
-[?] off the property. [?].

01:13:04.620 --> 01:13:05.040
-Sure.

01:13:05.730 --> 01:13:07.730
-Anyway, it was good talking to you, gentlemen.

01:13:09.970 --> 01:13:11.220
-Good afternoon.

01:13:11.910 --> 01:13:16.350
My name is Lorelei Scarbro
and I live in the Coal River Valley.

01:13:16.930 --> 01:13:20.440
I am West Virginia born
and raised up in here all my life.

01:13:20.930 --> 01:13:24.150
My father, my grandfather,
my brothers, my uncles,

01:13:24.150 --> 01:13:28.680
my husband and my son-in-law
all either were or are coal miners.

01:13:29.400 --> 01:13:31.370
-Activists like Lorelei Scarbro

01:13:31.770 --> 01:13:34.020
want to bring new jobs to their community.

01:13:34.600 --> 01:13:38.240
-We need clean jobs.
We need all the jobs we can get here

01:13:38.240 --> 01:13:43.930
and you guys need to come with us to try
to make sure that we all have a future here.

01:13:44.170 --> 01:13:44.910
Thank you.

01:13:47.220 --> 01:13:51.400
-Lorelei, working with other activists,
has proposed an alternative,

01:13:52.020 --> 01:13:54.840
a wind farm on the ridges
of Coal River Mountain

01:13:55.970 --> 01:13:59.600
and they\'ve worked with Google to create
a map that explains their plan.

01:14:01.280 --> 01:14:05.150
-My name is Lorelei Scarbro
and I live in Rock Creek, West Virginia

01:14:05.260 --> 01:14:07.600
at the foot of Coal River Mountain.

01:14:08.400 --> 01:14:16.510
A coal company plans to mine over 6,000 acres
of Coal River Mountain shown here in black.

01:14:17.660 --> 01:14:21.440
As soon as we heard about
the proposed mountaintop removal mine,

01:14:21.640 --> 01:14:25.310
we came together as a community
and proposed a better alternative,

01:14:25.620 --> 01:14:27.930
a sustainable wind farm.

01:14:28.240 --> 01:14:31.170
It would provide permanent jobs
for our community

01:14:31.440 --> 01:14:34.400
not to mention renewable energy forever.

01:14:38.460 --> 01:14:42.950
-Wind farms in the mountains of West Virginia
are already a reality.

01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:48.110
Three of them operate today powering
over 90,000 homes.

01:14:51.460 --> 01:14:54.800
-We believe that a higher
and better use for Coal River Mountain

01:14:54.800 --> 01:14:58.820
certainly is a windmill farm
as opposed to mountaintop removal.

01:14:59.330 --> 01:15:01.950
This particular mountain
has amazing wind potential.

01:15:02.600 --> 01:15:05.860
We can produce enough energy
on this mountain to power 70,000 homes.

01:15:06.200 --> 01:15:11.000
-Local organization raised the money,
not the government of West Virginia,

01:15:11.480 --> 01:15:15.660
to do a feasibility study
of the wind viability on Coal River Mountain

01:15:15.660 --> 01:15:18.970
and it was determined that it was excellent,
excellent.

01:15:19.240 --> 01:15:22.170
-In fact the Coal River Mountain is class five,

01:15:22.440 --> 01:15:25.020
one of the highest classes,
of wind capability.

01:15:27.400 --> 01:15:34.930
-Studies have been done that show 20 years
of jobs being produced year in, year out

01:15:35.170 --> 01:15:40.040
if you produce wind compared to fewer jobs
that are short-term,

01:15:40.200 --> 01:15:41.330
if you blow the mountain up.

01:15:41.600 --> 01:15:42.770
-It’s very, very toxic.

01:15:43.620 --> 01:15:46.220
-Because of a long-standing deal
with the state,

01:15:46.710 --> 01:15:50.970
coal companies only pay a small tax
to the counties in which the coal is mined.

01:15:52.220 --> 01:15:55.310
A wind farm would be required
to pay a much higher rate.

01:15:56.330 --> 01:16:00.930
-This County stands to gain $1.742 million

01:16:01.130 --> 01:16:05.400
from this mountain annually as opposed
to what the county would earn

01:16:05.480 --> 01:16:10.370
from the mountaintop removal operation
which is $36,000 a year.

01:16:10.370 --> 01:16:12.220
-If Massey blows up the mountain,

01:16:12.820 --> 01:16:15.910
the county gets $30,000 a year for 17 years.

01:16:16.550 --> 01:16:19.420
Then Massey leaves
with its pockets stuffed with cash

01:16:20.150 --> 01:16:23.350
and you’re left with a denuded moonscape.

01:16:24.550 --> 01:16:29.060
If you put the wind farms up there,
the county gets 1.7--

01:16:29.840 --> 01:16:31.350
-42 million.

01:16:31.350 --> 01:16:35.840
-1.7 basically $1.75 million a year.

01:16:35.840 --> 01:16:36.460
-Annual.

01:16:36.460 --> 01:16:38.080
-Annually, forever.

01:16:43.330 --> 01:16:47.040
The battle over Coal River Mountain
is that a critical battle for your community.

01:16:47.040 --> 01:16:50.880
-It’s very critical and when these mountains
here was destroyed,

01:16:50.880 --> 01:16:56.310
there was 400 megawatts of energy destroyed--
wind energy destroyed and it\'s critical.

01:16:56.330 --> 01:16:57.460
That’s our last mountain.

01:16:57.460 --> 01:17:00.950
That’s the last one we have to
where we can pull ourselves up out of this gap

01:17:00.950 --> 01:17:03.020
that the coal industry has put us in.

01:17:04.550 --> 01:17:07.660
Without that, there\'s no chance
that the people here

01:17:07.660 --> 01:17:11.730
in the coal fields
will ever have anything permanent.

01:17:14.510 --> 01:17:16.460
-In October 2009,

01:17:16.880 --> 01:17:21.440
Massey Energy begins blasting
at its first mine site on Coal River Mountain.

01:17:23.060 --> 01:17:26.200
Destroying the ridges would threaten
the proposed wind project

01:17:27.310 --> 01:17:31.350
so the locals and Climate Ground Zero
decide to take action.

01:17:38.200 --> 01:17:40.710
-We got dropped off probably
about nine o\'clock at night.

01:17:41.130 --> 01:17:43.060
We had to walk seven miles in the dark,

01:17:43.950 --> 01:17:49.420
in the snow and rain carrying
a 60-pound pack on a 30 pound

01:17:49.800 --> 01:17:54.480
awkward plywood plank up
a 1,300 elevation gain.

01:17:58.220 --> 01:18:02.770
It’s pretty physically grueling
and tensions were high,

01:18:03.200 --> 01:18:08.020
but we managed to stay pretty quiet
and right when we get in the trees,

01:18:08.240 --> 01:18:11.840
the lights from the machines come on
and it was just perfect timing.

01:18:12.460 --> 01:18:17.040
There are people working down below
and just their faces were priceless

01:18:17.040 --> 01:18:22.710
and it was worth every bit of it to just see
them be like, oh, how did this happen?

01:18:23.710 --> 01:18:26.600
-Eric Smith, Amber Richmond and Eric Blemings

01:18:26.840 --> 01:18:32.220
are on platforms approximately 60 feet up
on two poplar trees and one oak tree.

01:18:32.970 --> 01:18:35.950
Whoo-hoo, deal with that Don Blankenship.

01:18:37.930 --> 01:18:40.000
whoo-hoo, oh, God.

01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:41.000
-Yes. Perfect timing.

01:18:43.680 --> 01:18:46.130
-First day was really dangerous.

01:18:48.080 --> 01:18:51.510
The danger level is really,
really intense up there.

01:18:54.840 --> 01:18:58.310
-The most famous tactic they used
for harassment was the sound machines

01:18:58.640 --> 01:19:03.040
playing it way over the decibel level
for permanent ear damage.

01:19:07.460 --> 01:19:11.460
23 hours a day they\'re playing that
so you have to learn how to sleep through that,

01:19:11.460 --> 01:19:14.820
you have to learn how to just keep
your mind from cracking.

01:19:26.150 --> 01:19:27.820
-The tree sitters are hanging in there.

01:19:28.530 --> 01:19:31.750
They are totally strong and they\'re up beat.

01:19:34.330 --> 01:19:36.150
They’re going to be up there for a while.

01:19:39.200 --> 01:19:42.370
-The Climate Ground Zero
protesters remain in the trees

01:19:42.880 --> 01:19:45.170
until a winter blizzard forces them down.

01:19:45.880 --> 01:19:50.970
They’d stopped Massey Energy from blasting
on Coal River Mountain for nine days.

01:19:52.200 --> 01:19:55.970
-In jail, I got to talk to some deep miners.
I got to talk to a truck driver.

01:19:57.260 --> 01:20:00.510
Everybody in my cell block
just really interested to see like

01:20:01.040 --> 01:20:04.000
why is this person here from out of state?
Why does he care?

01:20:04.800 --> 01:20:07.710
Why would he sit in a tree next to dynamite?

01:20:09.620 --> 01:20:12.310
These corporations like Massey,
they don\'t have any boundaries.

01:20:12.730 --> 01:20:15.330
Why should we have boundaries?
It’s time for us to stand up

01:20:15.660 --> 01:20:20.530
as a national community and address
these issues and have perspective.

01:20:32.170 --> 01:20:35.710
-Coal River Mountain stands
as a symbol of what could be

01:20:36.040 --> 01:20:39.200
and what the future of America,
not just Appalachia,

01:20:39.200 --> 01:20:40.840
but what the future of America can hold.

01:20:50.200 --> 01:20:53.350
-600 miles away on the coast of Rhode Island

01:20:53.770 --> 01:20:56.600
is a Catholic boarding school
called Portsmouth Abbey.

01:20:59.840 --> 01:21:03.480
-We\'ve got around 350 kids in the school,
most of them live here,

01:21:03.480 --> 01:21:05.060
they come from all over the world.

01:21:06.800 --> 01:21:10.800
We tell the kids you need to be responsible
stewards of the property

01:21:10.800 --> 01:21:12.930
and the grounds and do green things.

01:21:12.930 --> 01:21:16.480
This was our, put your money
where your mouth is.

01:21:18.330 --> 01:21:21.480
-To reduce their greenhouse gas emissions
and utility bills,

01:21:22.220 --> 01:21:26.860
the Abbey built the first utility-scale
wind turbine in the state of Rhode Island.

01:21:28.570 --> 01:21:31.640
-My job was to convince the monks
that we should try this.

01:21:31.930 --> 01:21:35.770
We figured that if I could convince the monks,
we could convince anybody to do this.

01:21:36.060 --> 01:21:39.510
We involved the neighbors right
from the very beginning

01:21:39.510 --> 01:21:43.080
when we really didn\'t know anything other
than it was going to be really big.

01:21:43.510 --> 01:21:44.840
The neighbors were great.

01:21:44.840 --> 01:21:47.680
They were very supportive right
from the start.

01:21:48.930 --> 01:21:50.710
Because it\'s a good windy day today,

01:21:50.840 --> 01:21:53.930
we\'re getting all of our power
for the whole school from here.

01:21:54.060 --> 01:21:55.950
It’s about 35 buildings.

01:21:56.330 --> 01:21:59.220
We’ve been up and running now
for just over four years.

01:21:59.220 --> 01:22:06.130
We get on average about 40% of our
total electric comes from this one turbine

01:22:06.130 --> 01:22:09.260
and it has paid itself off already
in four years.

01:22:10.640 --> 01:22:14.130
-Clearly you\'ve convinced other people
to do the same thing. There’s another-

01:22:14.130 --> 01:22:14.640
-Right.

01:22:14.660 --> 01:22:17.200
--windmill right there. How [?] is that one?

01:22:17.200 --> 01:22:19.600
-That’s the town of Portsmouth.
The town we live in.

01:22:21.000 --> 01:22:24.060
-Portsmouth Abbey took the lead
in being the first community

01:22:24.060 --> 01:22:26.110
to bring a wind generator to our town.

01:22:26.880 --> 01:22:28.570
We saw how successful that was

01:22:28.570 --> 01:22:31.170
and then we began to investigate
the possibilities

01:22:31.170 --> 01:22:33.730
that we might be able do the same thing
for the municipality.

01:22:36.570 --> 01:22:40.370
We did an analysis to whether or not
a wind generator would work economically

01:22:40.400 --> 01:22:43.510
in our town and the net results are here.

01:22:45.860 --> 01:22:49.000
We’re generating
about roughly three-quarters

01:22:49.000 --> 01:22:51.680
of our town\'s electrical municipal needs.

01:22:57.440 --> 01:23:00.510
-We\'re looking at a proposal now
to construct a wind farm

01:23:00.550 --> 01:23:02.620
in Coal River Mountain in West Virginia.

01:23:03.680 --> 01:23:06.680
They have winds of category five. Very high.

01:23:07.800 --> 01:23:09.950
What category do you have here?

01:23:09.950 --> 01:23:11.840
-Yes, that\'s much better than we have here.

01:23:11.840 --> 01:23:14.530
Our winds here are category two winds.

01:23:19.880 --> 01:23:23.110
-We have a lot of visitors, a lot of other
communities that come here to ask us

01:23:23.110 --> 01:23:25.860
about how we\'ve done this
and can it work in their community?

01:23:26.330 --> 01:23:29.840
The answer basically is as long
as you have wind available

01:23:29.840 --> 01:23:32.350
and a space to put the machine,
it can work in your town.

01:23:34.620 --> 01:23:37.800
-Construction of wind turbines
would rapidly accelerate

01:23:38.370 --> 01:23:42.660
if electricity bills included the full cost
of mining and burning coal.

01:23:45.750 --> 01:23:47.550
If you made them pay the true cost

01:23:47.970 --> 01:23:51.200
of polluting all of our rivers with mercury
and with acid rain,

01:23:51.200 --> 01:23:53.460
of destroying the forests
of the Appalachians,

01:23:53.840 --> 01:23:57.480
of killing tens of thousands
of Americans every year,

01:23:58.800 --> 01:24:01.550
if you force them to pay
the true cost of production,

01:24:02.060 --> 01:24:07.420
there is no way that they could compete
for even a single day in the marketplace.

01:24:10.600 --> 01:24:12.600
-Even with the subsidies to coal,

01:24:13.080 --> 01:24:18.020
the wind industry in the US already
operates more than 35,000 turbines

01:24:18.660 --> 01:24:24.420
and employs 85,000 people,
as many as work in the coal industry.

01:24:26.950 --> 01:24:33.080
In 2009 alone, enough wind turbines
were built to power 2.4 million homes.

01:24:35.260 --> 01:24:37.530
-Great Plains states for [?] of wind.

01:24:40.240 --> 01:24:43.570
We have enough wind in North Dakota,
Montana and Texas

01:24:43.570 --> 01:24:46.640
to provide 100% of the energy needs
of our country

01:24:47.220 --> 01:24:49.220
even if every American own electric car.

01:24:53.710 --> 01:24:56.550
-Maximizing the power of renewable energy

01:24:56.820 --> 01:25:01.220
requires the US to replace its old
and deteriorating power grid.

01:25:03.770 --> 01:25:08.150
-We can build a national smart grid
across the country

01:25:08.150 --> 01:25:13.600
the same way that Eisenhower did with the
highway system during the 1950\'s and 1960s.

01:25:16.680 --> 01:25:21.460
-This giant construction project
would create almost 300,000 jobs,

01:25:22.620 --> 01:25:27.440
but cost less than the United States
spends on four months of oil imports,

01:25:32.130 --> 01:25:35.080
but renewable energy
has powerful opponents.

01:25:35.840 --> 01:25:38.770
-You’re looking at the most abundant fuel
in our country.

01:25:38.930 --> 01:25:41.110
You’re looking at an American resource

01:25:41.130 --> 01:25:45.200
that will help us toward vital energy
security into the next century,

01:25:45.510 --> 01:25:50.860
but most of all you\'re looking at
50% of our electricity, coal,

01:25:51.440 --> 01:25:54.330
it’s the resource that generates half
of our electricity.

01:25:55.000 --> 01:25:57.820
It’s the fuel that powers our way of life.

01:26:00.480 --> 01:26:05.150
-The Obama administration
is committed to a new energy economy,

01:26:05.640 --> 01:26:09.510
but Barack Obama is fighting a very strong

01:26:09.510 --> 01:26:11.710
and entrenched political force

01:26:12.200 --> 01:26:16.420
that is well-endowed with money
and political power and intensity.

01:26:17.370 --> 01:26:21.370
That has some of the leading politicians
not only in the Republican Party,

01:26:21.370 --> 01:26:24.950
but the Democratic Party who are going
to protect the interests of coal.

01:26:26.550 --> 01:26:28.060
-The Obama administration,

01:26:28.420 --> 01:26:30.800
despite its support for renewable energy

01:26:31.310 --> 01:26:34.080
has not yet
begun protecting Appalachian rivers

01:26:34.260 --> 01:26:36.480
from the effects of mountaintop removal.

01:26:38.020 --> 01:26:40.710
-The Obama administration could change

01:26:40.710 --> 01:26:43.680
the definition of fill back to
what it was before.

01:26:44.420 --> 01:26:46.530
That’s what we\'re asking
the administration to do.

01:26:47.220 --> 01:26:50.040
We’ve been asking the Obama administration
for nearly a year to do this

01:26:50.040 --> 01:26:51.350
and I\'ll have to be honest with you,

01:26:51.350 --> 01:26:53.770
I\'m not seeing
the Obama administration go there yet.

01:26:54.130 --> 01:26:56.350
We get a lot of sympathy
from the administration

01:26:56.350 --> 01:27:00.750
and we hear what you\'re saying, but no action.

01:27:04.080 --> 01:27:08.240
-Finally, in the Fall of 2009, a breakthrough.

01:27:11.420 --> 01:27:16.130
-Bobby was in meeting with the chief
of staff to President Obama

01:27:16.930 --> 01:27:19.130
discussing mountaintop removal
coal mining

01:27:20.260 --> 01:27:24.370
and this was shortly
after his Uncle Ted passed away

01:27:24.710 --> 01:27:28.730
and the president stopped
in to express his condolences.

01:27:30.060 --> 01:27:35.620
Bobby lobbied President Obama
about mountaintop removal coal mining.

01:27:38.440 --> 01:27:40.800
-Two days later, there\'s news.

01:27:42.530 --> 01:27:44.750
-The Environmental Protection Agency
has announced

01:27:44.750 --> 01:27:47.080
it will scrutinize 79 applications

01:27:47.080 --> 01:27:49.950
for mountaintop coal mine permits
in Appalachia

01:27:49.950 --> 01:27:52.400
to guard against damage to water supplies.

01:27:53.550 --> 01:27:55.440
-The agency soon goes further,

01:27:55.950 --> 01:27:59.970
issuing stricter guidelines that make it
even more difficult to grant permits

01:28:00.220 --> 01:28:02.800
for new mountaintop removal mines.

01:28:03.820 --> 01:28:07.130
-Coal communities should not have
to sacrifice their environment

01:28:07.550 --> 01:28:11.020
or their health or their economic future
to mountaintop mining.

01:28:11.480 --> 01:28:14.880
They deserve the full protection
of our clean water laws.

01:28:18.110 --> 01:28:19.820
-But permits for Coal River Mountain

01:28:20.370 --> 01:28:22.820
were granted under
the previous administration

01:28:24.220 --> 01:28:27.310
and Massey continues
to push forward with its plans.

01:28:41.640 --> 01:28:45.150
-If the wind farm proposal will go through,
that\'s what we could be looking at right now.

01:28:45.150 --> 01:28:47.880
We can be looking at wind turbines
all along these ridge tops there

01:28:48.930 --> 01:28:50.200
and the mountains preserved.

01:28:51.350 --> 01:28:54.240
It\'s just greed.

01:28:54.510 --> 01:28:55.860
There’s no other way to explain it.

01:28:56.480 --> 01:28:58.910
They’re bound and determined to knock
the mountain down.

01:29:00.400 --> 01:29:01.970
We\'re bound and determined to stop it.

01:29:06.130 --> 01:29:09.080
-Coal is mean, coal is cruel and coal kills

01:29:10.040 --> 01:29:13.970
and the American people need
to find their position where that is.

01:29:14.260 --> 01:29:16.770
You’re connected to coal
whether you realize it or not.

01:29:16.770 --> 01:29:18.260
Everybody’s connected to this

01:29:18.440 --> 01:29:21.280
and everybody\'s causing it
and everybody\'s allowing it.

01:29:23.750 --> 01:29:57.660
[MUSIC]

01:30:08.150 --> 01:30:11.040
-The government of Ontario, Canada
has decided

01:30:11.040 --> 01:30:15.770
to decommission all
of its coal-fired powerplants by 2014.

01:30:16.750 --> 01:30:20.110
It will replace them largely
with renewable energy.

01:30:21.680 --> 01:30:32.260
[MUSIC]

01:30:34.000 --> 01:30:39.440
From your tower, you say you see the way to go

01:30:39.640 --> 01:30:45.770
But you won\'t climb down
No you won\'t climb down

01:30:46.730 --> 01:30:51.930
Seems you\'d know by now just
how to pick your battles, girl

01:30:52.310 --> 01:30:58.600
But you want your control
You want your control

01:31:12.240 --> 01:31:17.370
You came on so easy singing \"gentle on my mind\"

01:31:18.040 --> 01:31:23.860
But a few months in your stuff grew thin
From the trouble of another time

01:31:24.770 --> 01:31:30.150
There you go again pretending
you know what goes on

01:31:30.420 --> 01:31:36.280
You say you want resolution
I say you want your control

01:31:37.530 --> 01:31:42.860
Rebel\'s got no mind to forfeit

01:31:43.260 --> 01:31:49.730
Fortune teller,
tell me how it won\'t be changing

01:31:50.260 --> 01:31:56.330
Bit by bit, arms started shaking
Spinning and now the kids wanna make it

01:31:56.680 --> 01:32:02.730
Piece by piece cold time erasing
What we want and what we\'ll be taking

01:32:03.200 --> 01:32:09.170
What we want and what we\'ll be taking
It\'s no choice if it\'s just another

01:32:09.170 --> 01:32:14.170
Reaction we can skip the details and be done

01:32:14.710 --> 01:32:20.880
And I won\'t go back, no, I won\'t go back

01:32:21.860 --> 01:32:28.260
Then it comes, I get a funny feeling sometimes

01:32:28.260 --> 01:32:33.600
I don\'t know why, no, I don\'t know why

01:32:34.550 --> 01:32:40.800
Rebel\'s got no mind to forfeit

01:32:40.800 --> 01:32:46.970
Fortune teller,
tell me how it won\'t be changing

01:32:47.220 --> 01:32:53.550
Bit by bit, arms started shaking
Spinning and now the kids wanna make it

01:32:53.550 --> 01:32:59.750
Piece by piece cold time erasing
What we want and what we\'ll be taking

01:33:00.060 --> 01:33:06.310
What we want and what we\'ll be taking
It\'s no choice if it\'s just another

01:33:07.170 --> 01:33:11.530
oohh

01:33:31.840 --> 01:33:38.170
Then it comes, I get a funny feeling sometimes

01:33:38.170 --> 01:33:43.310
I don\'t know why, no, I don\'t know why

01:33:44.620 --> 01:33:56.800
Rebel\'s got no mind to forfeit Fortune teller,
tell me how it won\'t be changing

01:33:57.330 --> 01:34:03.440
Bit by bit, arms started shaking
Spinning and now the kids wanna make it

01:34:03.680 --> 01:34:09.970
Piece by piece cold time erasing
What we want and what we\'ll be taking

01:34:09.970 --> 01:34:16.400
What we want and what we\'ll be taking
It\'s no choice if it\'s just another

01:34:17.000 --> 01:34:22.910
ooh

01:34:30.680 --> 01:34:57.350
[MUSIC]