COAL COUNTRY
tells of the dramatic struggle around the use of coal, which provides
over half the electricity in America.



In Appalachia, miners and residents are locked in conflict: is mining
and processing coal essential to providing good jobs, or is it destroying the land,
water and air? What does this mean for the rest of America and the world?



ANOTHER CIVIL WAR

Passions are running high in the mountains of Appalachia. Families and communities are deeply split over what is being done to their land. At issue is the latest form of strip mining called ‘mountaintop removal’, or MTR. Coal companies blast the tops off mountains, and run the debris into valleys and streams. Then they mine the exposed seams of coal and transport it to processing plants. Coal is mined more cheaply than ever, and America needs coal. But the air and water are filled with chemicals, and an ancient mountain range is disappearing forever.

THE PEOPLE IN THE MOVIE

Kathy Selvage



KATHY SELVAGE’s father was a coalminer and a decades-long member of the UMWA. But when MTR began to tear her community apart, KATHY could not remain silent. She and her neighbors couldn’t sleep at night, couldn’t keep their windows open because of the noise and dust. Her mother could not sit on her front porch. KATHY respects miners, but she can no longer bear the destruction. She watches residents contend with continual blasting from MTR sites that are 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours a day. This coalminer’s daughter became a grass-roots organizer.

Randall Maggard

RANDALL MAGGARD is a manager at a coal company. He likes his job and doesn’t believe that MTR is a problem. To him, the protesters are ‘tree-huggers’ who overreact to small discomforts and don’t really understand how important coal is for the country. Every time the activists prevent a new mining permit, all he sees are jobs being lost. RANDALL also points to ‘reclamation’ on MTR sites, where the flattened land is either re-planted or is turned into valuable real estate for new housing and industrial parks.

Here is a link to a series of pictures that Randall submitted on behalf of Argus Energy showing the company side of restoration after mining. CLICK HERE

Joe Lovett

JOE LOVETT is the only lawyer in West Virginia whose time is devoted entirely to environmental issues, particularly mountain-top removal. JOE works with local groups and individuals to file suits against state and federal agencies, trying to prevent new permits for mines and processing plants, or at least make the coal companies adhere to existing laws. JOE says, “There are good laws on the books. The Clean Water Act is a good law. But it isn’t enforced.” He says there is no such thing as ‘clean coal’. When asked what role coal should play in our energy future, Joe says, “None”.

Both sides in this conflict claim that history is on their side. Families have lived in the region for generations. Most have ancestors who worked in the mines. Everyone shares a deep love for the land, but MTR is tearing them apart.

Judy Bonds

Judy Bonds is a winner of the Emma Goldman Award from the Sierra Club, and one of the key figures in Coal River Mountain Watch. JUDY tells us that the river was named when coal was first discovered there in 1749 by a man named  John Peter Saley. Then she says, “If he had known what agony it would have caused, he’d have covered it up and kept his mouth shut.” JUDY also works with Christians for the Mountains, believing that God meant for us to be good stewards of His creation. She has educated herself about the science and the economics of coal and the best ways to navigate the regulatory commissions of West Virginia. Her speeches and protests are well-known; she feels under constant threat from coal supporters, with people setting off firecrackers in her driveway or planting recording devices on her power pole. She has installed three security cameras on her house. And she knows how to use her rifle.

Chuck Nelson

Chuck Nelson is a retired union coal miner who spent 35 years underground. When Massey Energy built a processing plant in his home town of Sylvester, West Virginia, CHUCK was horrified by the dust and debris threatening the town. He began to protest. He lost his job and his family home. In order to get health insurance, CHUCK had to take a job for a non-union mine…run by Massey Energy. Now CHUCK works full time with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC). We follow him as he helps organize another community trying to protect its land and water.

Elisa Young

Young, from Racine, Ohio, lives on farmland that has been her family for 7 generations.  She originally dreamed of starting a sustainable living and teaching center and farming organically, but found herself embroiled in coalfield struggles after witnessing multiple neighbors die from coal-attributable deaths, cancer and asthma.  With 4 power plants visible from their farm, her community has the highest asthma and lung cancer death rate in the state, the shortest life expectancy, and are in the top 3rd percentile for the worst air quality in the nation.    Five more plants now proposed threaten to make her community the largest concentration of coal-fired power plants in the nation:  Nine within an 11.5 mile radius.  After learning the 40 years of mining proposed to fuel them would encompass her farm, she founded the grassroots community group, Meigs Citizens Action Now! 
 
Officials say the new plants would create hundrends of jobs.  Young believes "clean" coal would create intolerable living conditions.  The nearby village of Cheshire that her family settled was recently bought and depopulated by energy giant American Electric Power as the result of "clean" coal gone bad.  Four of the five proposed new power plants would use Ingetrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology that some view as a solution, but have created superfund sites from water contamination issues with arsenic, cyanide, and chromium even when done on a much smaller scale.  Young believes coal and sustainable energy jobs of the future are incompatible, and has chosen to fight through the regulatory and legal systems to keep her community from being sacrificed for "cheap" electricity.  One of the proposed power plants, AMP Ohio, has threatened to sue her for this resistance.



KATHY, CHUCK, JUDY and ELISA are average people who have learned to negotiate complex journeys through local, state and federal lawmaking. They have gone beyond their own expectations of themselves and the patterns set for their lives. We will experience the enormous challenges they face, as well as their failures and achievements.
RANDY and his colleagues are equally passionate about protecting jobs for the people of their state. They believe that the environmentalists may kill coal mining in West Virginia, and then the state will truly become an economic disaster. 
JOE is the professional who guides the activists through the legal and regulatory system. Part of the film’s narrative will come from following the progress of several of JOE’s lawsuits.
To illuminate these themes, the film will offer comments from the following, among others:

Patrice Simms, Senior Project Attorney, NRDC
Michael Shnayerson, Vanity Fair, author COAL RIVER
Ken Hechler, former Secretary of State, West Virginia

Dr. Philippe Jamet, French Attaché for Science and Technology, Washington DC

Gene Kitts, Vice President, ICG

Dr. Michael Hendryx, Professor, WVU

AN URGENT DISCUSSION:
FUEL FOR THE FUTURE

Some experts believe that nuclear, hydropower, geothermal, wind, solar, and biomass energy sources will be important, but won't be able to meet the world’s energy demands in the foreseeable future.  

Some say coal reserves will last nearly 200 years, and that it should be the focus of a domestic energy policy. They claim that new technology can reduce carbon emissions and provide ‘clean coal’. Even President Obama has talked about investing in clean coal technology. Opponents insist there is no such thing.



We will examine the proposed methods for cleaning up the use of coal: carbon sequestration, which allows carbon content to be captured and pumped into underground storage sites, and better filtering at coal processing plants.
In this time of debate about America’s reliance on foreign oil and fear of increasing energy costs, coal can look attractive. The public must be made aware of the controversy around coal; they must be given the information behind it and the opportunity to participate in the debate over America’s energy future.

THE TRUE COST OF COAL



Coal company manager Randall Maggard stressed to us that their new Highwall Miner as a newer more efficient method of extracting coal that is both safer and doesn't require the removal of the mountaintop. This site has been backfilled and was seeded in March and is now a level area where Freelin Browning (the property owner) wants to plant an apple orchard on this fall.The movie was made to offer views from both sides of the issue to foster better ways to compromise, and take a look at coal mining with compassion, and respect.



Coal is very far from the minds of most Americans, and this film may make you consider, for a moment, where the energy comes from to run the machinery of our daily lives.



We hear so much about the need for oil; politicians debate over wind farms and solar power. But few of us even realize that coal remains an important energy source, and that the methods of mining and processing coal are significant causes of global warming. We need to understand the meaning behind promises of “cheap energy” and “clean coal”. Are they achievable? And at what cost?





We tell the compelling story of modern coal mining through the daily activities of working miners as well as those who are battling the coal companies in Appalachia. Their personal stories are the touchstone for our exploration of the true cost of coal and the search for alternatives sources of energy. Are the people fighting MTR really protecting the earth, or do they stand in the way of affordable energy for all Americans?



Jordan Freeman is an independent videographer based in Rock Creek, WV. He was a primary videographer for the film Coal Country. He has also worked with Coal River Mountain Watch, Climate Ground Zero, and the Ohio Valley environmental coalition documenting events for web release. Originally coming to the Coal River from Santa Cruz, CA in 2005, Freeman has spent the last three years documenting the unfolding controversies surrounding coal mining throughout Appalachia.


COAL COUNTRY
Executive Producer: Mari-Lynn Evans
Written, Produced and Directed by Phylis Geller

copyright 2009 all rights reserved