"Coal Country"

[Mamaka]

WEST VIRGINIA PREMIERE: Coal Country

Executive Producer: MARI-LYNN EVANS
Writer/Producer/Director: PHYLIS GELLER
www.coalcountrythemovie.com


SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2009
Open to the Public, Free of charge, seating is limited
6:00 PM Reception; 7:00 PM showing
LaBelle Theater
South Charleston Museum
311 D Street, South Charleston, WV 25303
Google map

(Contact [e-mail] for carpooling possibilities from the Athens, Ohio area.)

COAL COUNTRY
A Film by Mari-Lynn Evans & Phylis Geller

WEST VIRGINIA PREMIERE

COAL COUNTRY is a dramatic look at modern coal mining.

We get to know working miners along with activists who are battling coal companies in Appalachia. We visit the homes of people most directly affected by MTR, or mountain-top removal
mining; they talk to us about health problems, dirty water in their wells and streams, and dust and grime on their floors.

We hear from miners and coal company officials, who are concerned about jobs and the economy and believe they are acting responsibly in bringing power to the American people.

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

We need to understand the meaning behind promises of “cheap energy” and “clean coal.” Are they achievable? At what cost?

And what are the alternatives for our energy future?


Executive Producer: MARI-LYNN EVANS
Writer/Producer/Director: PHYLIS GELLER

www.coalcountrythemovie.com

CONTACT Mari-Lynn Evans
[e-mail]
[phone]

Additional info on the Ohio Valley Environmental Coaltion page.

As well as on the Sierra Club page.

***
7/3/09 Follow-up note from Richard:

Here's the opening of Jeff Biggers' column at HuffingtonPost this morning~~~

Author, The United States of Appalachia
Posted: July 3, 2009 04:52 AM

As a groundbreaking clean energy counterpart to this summer's extraordinary Food,
Inc. documentary on the agribusiness, the long-awaited "Coal Country" film on the
cradle-to-grave process of generating our coal-fired electricity will be hitting the
theatres next week with the big bang of an ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosive.
And Big Coal ain't happy.

After a year-long campaign of threats and intimidation, the Big Coal lobby plans to
have its Friends of Coal sycophants out in force to picket the premiere of the film
on July 11, 7pm, at La Belle Theater in the South Charleston Museum in Charleston,
West Virginia.

Why is Big Coal so afeared of this documentary film by native Appalachian daughters
Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller, producer and director of three-part award-winning
landmark PBS series, "The Appalachians"?

If anything, Coal Country goes out of its way to include the views and voices of the
Big Coal lobby and its executives, engineers and miners. This, in fact, might be why
Coal Country is so compelling; far from any hackneyed agenda, Coal Country simply
allows the coal industry and those affected by its mountaintop removal operations
and coal-fired plants to tell their personal stories. The end result is devastating.
In a methodical and deliberate fashion, Coal Country brilliantly takes viewers on a
rare journey through our nation's coal-fired electricity, from the extraction,
processing, transport, and burning of coal.

Once you see the breathtaking footage by cameraman Jordan Freeman, and the
unaffected and heart-rending portraits of coal mining families, you will never flick
on your light switch again without thinking about Coal Country.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/coal-country-premiere-big_b_225341.html

A reception in Charleston starts at 6:00, and Elisa Young says car-pooling is
getting set up if you want to go down. The showing is free, but of course seating
is limited. Therefore, what we need to do is get a showing here---or wherever you
are---pronto.

Elisa, well-known and courageous local activist whose family farm of 7 generations
sits in the shadow of all the power plants along the River at Racine, had this to
say yesterday at the Yahoo Group known as Athens Grows~~~

There are screenings being scheduled in Cleveland, Akron, and Kent that I will be
traveling to speak at. Nothing has been scheduled yet in Southern Ohio. In Meigs
we don't have much in the way of public buildings or space to do this.

I'm talking with some fellow students at Hocking and OU, but nothing set yet. If
there are some interfaith or social justice groups out there that would like to
cosponsor an event or screening of Coal Country, it would be great.
That's a word to the wise---and you might get Elisa to moderate discussion. Do we
need to mention that coal clearly is the hot spot in the Climate Change battle? If
there is that need, you might take a look at Coal River Valley resident Bo Webb's
open letter to Al Gore, written yesterday~~~

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/02-14

Part of the coal process, of course, is what to do with the toxic waste---and that
is a major component of Elisa's protest, given where she lives. She posted this
yesterday~~~

It's ridiculous that industry is allowed to dump this toxic waste on our roads, line
our children's running tracks with it, make toxic building materials out of it in
the name of recycling, feed our cattle off of it, yet claim they need to keep the
locations of impoundments secret in the name of "national security."

For pity's sake. Their location is only a "secret" to people who are buying the
electricity who don't live and breathe here where it's generated daily. Secrecy is
just one more way to make it out of sight out of mind. Just drive to the power
plant and follow the belt lines back and there's your coal ash pits. It's getting
so tall out back of Gavin they are just terracing it off and spraying it with grass
seed. When my buddy Larry Gibson was here afew months ago, his eyes got big when
he saw it - they are building mountains out of toxic waste from what used to be his
mountains - MTR (mountain top removal) in reverse.

When I first read this report several weeks ago
http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/ccrs-fs/index.htm , I
contacted friends on Coal River to ask if the EPA/DEP had ever staked the same claim
on sludge impoundments - refuse to release information on their locations in the
name of "national security" all the while insisting that they pose no threat to
human life or health and are perfectly safe with every new permit issued.

My thought was that the sludge impoundments are so much more toxic than the coal ash
ponds, how could the swear secrecy on one but not the other? They can't have it
both ways!

Resounding response came back that they have not pulled the same with sludge. But
a breakdown of the toxins that came back from long-time fellow water activist, Cindy
Rank, was really sobering. She said sludge and coal ash are equally toxic. Several
months before that, I had seen a graph and report that showed the EPA likes to keep
the acceptable death rate on issuing permits to 1:100,000. Smoking a pack of
cigarettes a day raises the cancer death rate to 100:100,000. Being exposed to coal
ash raises the death rate to 900:100,000.

A 9 pack-a-day habit. Coal is killing us. And we aren't allowed to talk about it.
If that isn't addiction, I don't know what is.

If our health, safety, and security are really their priority, how about stop
passing out permits for power plants and coal ash dumps in expendible energy
colonies, oops, I mean communities, that are invisible to the rest of the world, and
then banish what should be public information about them in the name of "national
security."

http://www.sierraclub.org/scp/coalcountry.aspx including a video clip with Ashley Judd.

If you're part of a church or environmental group interested in scheduling this film
for your meeting, reply here and we'll see what can be arranged. Clearly OU needs
to get "Coal Country" for the next Film Festival...but can we wait?

[Mamaka]

'Coal Country' premiere finds new home at Cultural Centerfree 8 p.m. screening on Saturday at the Cultural Center theater inthe state Capitol Complex.


The premiere of the documentary "Coal Country" has found a new home at a free 8p.m. screening on Saturday at the Cultural Center theater in the state Capitol Complex, after the South Charleston Museum bowed out because of what it called "a potential security concern."

By Douglas Imbrogno
Staff writer

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The premiere of thedocumentary "Coal Country" has found anew home at a free 8 p.m. screening on Saturday at the Cultural Center theater inthe state Capitol Complex.

A plan to show the movie in South Charleston was scratched after the South Charleston Museum bowed out because of what it called "a potential security concern."

Producer Mari-Lynn Evans was in a mad scramble to find a new venue for the90-minute film after she received an e-mail from Rhuel Craddock, chairman of the South Charleston Museum Board of Directors, which said the museum board voted to cancel the presentation.

"It was a real shock when they canceled it," said Evans, who also produced the award-winning PBS documentary "The Appalachians."

Craddock said that while there were no specific threats, the board unanimously backed off from the screening. Supporters of the film had inquired about hiring off-duty police to deal with protesters who might object to it, even though the film considers all sides in the contentious debate over mountaintop removal mining.


"We'd rather not get involved in a function like this where there might be a fracas or somebody might get hurt," Craddock said Thursday.

The film examines the intense emotions and controversy over mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia and central Appalachia. It profiles average citizens turned activists because of the blasting away of mountains and the fouling of their land, as well as the plight of workers and families dependent on mining jobs.


"Everyone is completely confounded because this film does show both sides. I think people just need to see the film," said Evans, whose Evening Star Productions crafted the film with producer and director Phyllis Geller.

After calling "every university, church or organization who could possibly have a theater large enough to hold us," Evans telephoned Kay Goodwin, secretary for the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts.


"I've known Mari-Lynn for a long time and certainly her work with 'The Appalachians' is quite laudable," said Goodwin. "She called and I referred her to the folks over at Culture and History to help her."

Evans, Geller and crew spent several years on "Coal Country," whose $1 million budget comes from the Adam J. Lewis Foundation, Sarah DuPont and the Park Foundation. The film will receive its national rollout on PBS this fall or winter. But Evans, a Braxton County native who now lives in Akron, Ohio, wanted its world
premiere in her home state.


In the midst of the hectic search for a new venue, at a low point when she thought the premiere would be canceled, Evans received good news about "Coal Country." It has been accepted as a finalist in the prestigious Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, one of three films in the "Best Conservation Program" category.

"It is rated the best conservation film festival in the country. It's incredible," she said.

Evans expects a host of people in the audience at Saturday's premiere, including Randall Maggard, whose Boone County mountaintop removal mining operation is profiled in the film.

"I'm hoping from the premiere what I've always hoped -- that people will watch this film and it will help them understand the issue of coal and mountaintop removal mining and what it means, especially in Appalachia."


WEST VIRGINIA PREMIERE: Coal Country

Executive Producer: MARI-LYNN EVANS
Writer/Producer/Director: PHYLIS GELLER
www.coalcountrythemovie.com


COAL COUNTRY
A Film by Mari-Lynn Evans & Phylis Geller

WEST VIRGINIA PREMIERE

COAL COUNTRY is a dramatic look at modern coal mining.

We get to know working miners along with activists who are battling coal companies in Appalachia. We visit the homes of people most directly affected by MTR, or mountain-top removal
mining; they talk to us about health problems, dirty water in their wells and streams, and dust and grime on their floors.

We hear from miners and coal company officials, who are concerned about jobs and the economy and believe they are acting responsibly in bringing power to the American people.

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

We need to understand the meaning behind promises of “cheap energy” and “clean coal.” Are they achievable? At what cost?

And what are the alternatives for our energy future?


Executive Producer: MARI-LYNN EVANS
Writer/Producer/Director: PHYLIS GELLER

www.coalcountrythemovie.com

CONTACT Mari-Lynn Evans
[e-mail]
[phone]

Additional info on the Ohio Valley Environmental Coaltion page.

As well as on the Sierra Club page.

[Mamaka]

A President Breaks Hearts in Appalachia

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Friday, July 3, 2009

Mountaintop removal coal mining is the worst environmental tragedy in American
history. When will the Obama administration finally stop this Appalachian
apocalypse?
If ever an issue deserved President Obama's promise of change, this is it. Mining
syndicates are detonating 2,500 tons of explosives each day -- the equivalent of a
Hiroshima bomb weekly -- to blow up Appalachia's mountains and extract sub-surface
coal seams. They have demolished 500 mountains -- encompassing about a million acres
-- buried hundreds of valley streams under tons of rubble, poisoned and uprooted
countless communities, and caused widespread contamination to the region's air and
water. On this continent, only Appalachia's rich woodlands survived the Pleistocene
ice ages that turned the rest of North America into a treeless tundra. King Coal is
now accomplishing what the glaciers could not -- obliterating the hemisphere's
oldest, most biologically dense and diverse forests. Highly mechanized processes
allow giant machines to flatten in months mountains older than the Himalayas --
while employing fewer workers for far less time than other
types of mining. The coal industry's promise to restore the desolate wastelands is
a cruel joke, and the industry's fallback position, that the flattened landscapes
will provide space for economic development, is the weak punchline. America adores
its Adirondacks and reveres the Rockies, while the Appalachian Mountains -- with
their impoverished and alienated population -- are dismantled by coal moguls who
dominate state politics and have little to prevent them from blasting the physical
landscape to smithereens.
Obama promised science-based policies that would save what remains of Appalachia,
but last month senior administration officials finally weighed in with a mixture of
strong words and weak action that broke hearts across the region. The modest
measures federal bureaucrats promised amount to little more than a tepid pledge of
better enforcement of existing laws.
And government claims of doing everything possible to halt the holocaust are simply
not true. George Bush gutted Clean Water Act protections. Obama must restore them.
First, the White House should fix the "fill" rule the Bush administration adopted in
2002 to allow coal companies to use streams as waste dumps. Under this perverse
interpretation of the Clean Water Act, 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been
interred under mining waste. Obama could reverse the "fill" rule to reflect its
original meaning, which forbids waste matter from being dumped into waterways.
Second, the Interior Department should strictly enforce the widely ignored "buffer
zone" rule that forbids dumping waste within 100 feet of intermittent or perennial
streams.
Third, our laws require companies to restore mined areas to their original
condition. The administration should end the absurd fiction that extraction pits
filled with unconsolidated rocks and rubble where trees will never grow and streams
will never flow are "reclaimed."
Fourth, current law forbids the issuance of "fill" permits that will cause
"significant degradation" to waterways. It is absurd for the Army Corps of Engineers
to endorse the canard that filling miles of streams is not causing significant
degradation. The president should require the Corps to deny and rescind permits
where operations will cause downstream damage.
Fifth, the Clean Water Act requires mining operators to prove that they can restore
the "function and structure" of affected streams. Operators have never been
compelled to make the functional or structural analyses of the aquatic ecosystem
required by the act. Obama should order his officials to stop ignoring this
requirement.
Sixth, the administration should enforce the law requiring an environmental impact
study for each permit when a mine "may have significant environmental impacts,"
individually or cumulatively. The Corps of Engineers routinely allows coal operators
to escape this mandate -- an illegal practice that should stop.
Instead of acting to enforce these laws, administration officials indicated last
month that they will allow more than 100 permits to go forward while they carefully
review their regulatory options. If they act accordingly, the ruined landscapes of
Appalachia will be Obama's legacy.
President Obama should go to Appalachia and see mountaintop removal. My father
visited Appalachia in 1966 and was so horrified by strip mining -- then in its
infancy -- that he made it a key priority of his political agenda. He complained
that Appalachia, with our nation's richest natural resources, was home to America's
poorest populations, its worst education system, and its highest illiteracy and
unemployment rates. These statistics are even grimmer today as mining saps state
wealth. In 1966, 46,000 West Virginia miners were collecting salaries and pensions
and reinvesting in their communities. Mechanization has shrunk that number to fewer
than 11,000. They extract more coal annually, but virtually all the profits leave
the state for Wall Street.
The coal industry provides only 2 percent of the jobs in Central Appalachia.
Wal-Mart employs more people than the coal companies in West Virginia. Last week a
major study documented how coal imposes a net cost to Kentucky of more than $100
million per year. Coal is not an economic engine in the coalfields. It is an
extraction engine.
Obama has the authority to end mountaintop removal, without further action from
Congress and without formal rulemaking. He just needs to make the coal barons obey
the law.