Narrator/Intv.:

They're the oldest mountains in the world, but to coal companies, these ancient Appalachians are a barrier to progress.

It's called mountaintop removal. It's a particularly aggressive form of mining, but the concept is simple.

Ben Green:

In underground mining, you remove the mineral from the earth, and in mountaintop removal mining, you remove the earth from the mineral.

Narrator/Intv.:

The technique of repeatedly blasting and scouring the mountains was developed in West Virginia, and the coal industry here says it's the only economically viable future for coal. But for the people who live here, in the dead-end valleys they call hollows, it could mean no future at all.

(singing).

The rest of America calls these people mockingly hillbillies. Now, West Virginia's hillbillies are fighting back.

Activist:

It's time that we all stand up together for our people in southern West Virginia and for our mountains and say, "Enough is enough from the coal companies. I'll tell you what, our politicians are bought and sold!"

Narrator/Intv.:

At first, this rally appears to be a simple conflict between miners and environmentalists.

Activist:

Why can't they restore the land?

Speaker 3:

What is-

Activist:

That creates jobs.

Speaker 3:

Once the [inaudible] ... If you'd come to West Virginia-

Activist:

Are you telling me you can't restore the land?!

Speaker 3:

I'm saying you can. [crosstalk]-

Activist:

Well, then why don't we spend our money doing that?!

Speaker 3:

It's done every day. We do it every day.

Narrator/Intv.:

But what's extraordinary about the people opposing these miners is that almost all of them are from coal mining families.

Larry Gibson:

What we're protesting here today is about the way the coal's taken out and the method being used. To destroy your own backyard where you have to live and work at, I don't think that's a justified thing.

I look at being called a hillbilly as a prideful thing, because I am. The only thing I ain't is stupid.

Narrator/Intv.:

Larry Gibson left school in the third grade, but that hasn't stopped him confronting the most powerful industry in the state.

Larry Gibson:

They want to take all these mountains down through here. They can't do it with the people here.

Narrator/Intv.:

Life here has been one of submission to coal for 150 years, and the small state of West Virginia remains the second largest coal producer in America.

Today, Larry is taking me to Kayford Mountain where his coal mining family settled in the early part of last century.

Larry Gibson:

This has been here since about 1830.

Narrator/Intv.:

All that's left now is his family's cemetery. It's an island in the middle of a mountaintop mine.

Larry Gibson:

The good Lord put these mountains here. Only the good Lord should have the right to take them.

Narrator/Intv.:

Larry's campaign against mining began too late to preserve his own mountain. He saved what he could, but he couldn't stop the mining on the land the company already owned.

Larry Gibson:

It's like this mountain right here, right in front of you where that coal seam is right there where that truck is over there.

Narrator/Intv.:

Yeah.

Larry Gibson:

That mountain there used to be three times higher than what it is now. This is what the great United States of America is letting happen to their own people in their own land. These are the natural jewels of West Virginia, natural jewels-

Narrator/Intv.:

But Ben Green, who's been in this industry for over 30 years, says he can't understand what people are complaining about.

Ben Green:

If there's any valid explanation, it's probably maybe the size of some of the operations today. There's no doubt about the fact that they're larger, maybe a little more massive, far more capital investment. But the technique of mountaintop removal is at least 30 years old.

Narrator/Intv.:

The technique may not be new, but mountaintop removal on this scale has only been possible in the last decade with the development of 20-story-high, mountain-crushing machines called draglines. But the increase in the practise in the 1990s is also due incredibly to improved environmental standards.

When the United States passed it's Clean Air Act eight years ago, demand for West Virginia's clean-burning, low-sulfur coal soared. The mountaintops were suddenly worth billions of dollars a year.

Larry Gibson:

Now, it's not just a piece a land or just a graveyard. It's my heritage. If I sit real quiet I can almost hear the people.

Narrator/Intv.:

Larry Gibson doesn't dispute the economic benefits of mining here, but he does question whether coal has had too much influence over the state's lawmakers.

Larry Gibson:

Mountain people never did get equal education, and they can do this. It's how they get by with it.

Michael Miano:

I think it would be unfair to characterise the state's political system to be controlled by coal.

Narrator/Intv.:

Michael Miano protests, but he's also one of the key targets of this criticism.

You don't see a conflict of interest with a matter of months ago having been a coal executive and now heading up the Department of the Environment?

Michael Miano:

I think that there was the potential question that people would have. They might say that well, here comes another coal guy, and if he's a coal guy, he can't be a good guy.

But I have attempted to demonstrate through my actions and activities that I am here to enforce the law of the state and to protect the environment, restore the environment, and do what is right for the citizens of the state of West Virginia.

Sibby Weekley:

We use them for baking.

Narrator/Intv.:

What do you make with those?

Sibby Weekley:

Black walnut cake.

Narrator/Intv.:

Sibby Weekley has lived in this hollow of Pigeonroost all her life. It's her version of paradise.

Sibby Weekley:

We use it in peanut butter fudge candy.

Narrator/Intv.:

You don't want to touch them with your hand?

Sibby Weekley:

No, you don't want to touch them with your hand.

Narrator/Intv.:

She met her husband here. She raised her children here, and she knows where to find the best apples and walnuts for Sunday dinner with her grandchildren.

What's the plan?

Sibby Weekley:

We'll wash them, and we will peel them, and we will [inaudible]. Now, you're going to do the same thing. Pick it up by the leg.

Narrator/Intv.:

But coal mining is encroaching on Sibby and James Weekley's way of life. Above them, a mountaintop mine blasts day and night.

Sibby Weekley:

Okay, I'm going to ... Hey, you guys, come and get washed up. It's time to eat.

Grandchildren:

Okay.

Narrator/Intv.:

Now that mine wants to extend it's mining permit right into this hollow. It's offered to buy the Weekleys out. But these mountain folk are proving hard to shift.

James Weekley:

Money can't buy my memories of my kids, footsteps of my grandpa, my grandchildren. The footsteps that I've lived in this house. Money can't buy that. Money can't buy that.

Grandchildren:

[inaudible] it out.

Narrator/Intv.:

It's an argument that's been impossible to get around no matter how high the offer has climbed.

James Weekley:

The only way they'll get me out of Pigeonroost Hollow and my wife is to shove us out with a bulldozer, period.

Narrator/Intv.:

But even if they stay, the mine could still come to within 300 feet of the Weekley's home. In order to show me just what that would do to his life here, James took me fishing in his hollow.

Ah, he's big.

James Weekley:

Reel it, reel it up. That's it. Wow. Did you want to hold your fish-

Narrator/Intv.:

No.

James Weekley:

... that you caught?

Narrator/Intv.:

No.

James Weekley:

Huh?

Narrator/Intv.:

I'll look at him. Yup, well you're a big fish.

They're going to fill in this valley we're standing in.

James Weekley:

Yes, ma'am. If they get the 3200-acre permit, this valley right here where we're standing will be filled in with these mountaintops from each side.

Narrator/Intv.:

To try to prevent this, the Weekleys are taking up the fight on another for them unfamiliar front. Along with other locals, they're bringing a lawsuit to stop the state government from issuing the permit to extend the mine.

James Weekley:

As you can hear, the creeks run out here, ma'am. Listen how beautiful it is.

Narrator/Intv.:

It's a suit James trustingly believes he will win if only he can make people understand how special his home is.

James Weekley:

If they issue this permit, we have no home. That's the reason I ask these people to reach really down into their hearts. Put theirself in our position, see if they would want their home took from them the way the coal company wants them to take ours. It's not fair. It's not fair.

Poppy loves you. Come back and see Poppy.

Grandchildren:

Okay.

Sibby Weekley:

Give him a kiss [inaudible].

James Weekley:

Poppy loves you.

Grandchildren:

Love you.

Sibby Weekley:

Love you.

James Weekley:

[inaudible].

Grandchildren:

[inaudible].

Sibby Weekley:

I love you.

James Weekley:

Bye, babies.

Sibby Weekley:

Yeah, I'll take you to the car.

Narrator/Intv.:

From this perspective, it looks like the mountain people are fighting a losing battle. It's early morning in Blair, the town closest to the Weekley's hollow. As families are getting ready for work, looming over them is one of the new generation of monster machines mining closer and closer to their homes.

Charles Bartram stands outside his home of 35 years watching and waiting.

Charles Bartram:

All them big storms that come through that way. They've cut that mountain down 'til they hit right in here. They're going on down with it. There's another seam of coal under where they're working there now. They'll take it all.

Narrator/Intv.:

As he watches progress on the mountain, this 80-year-old ex-miner is also pondering an offer to sell his home to the mining company.

Charles Bartram:

They want to get rid of all of us. There's a big seam of coal down under here they're going to get to, a seven-foot seam of coal down under here, and they want to get us out of here.

Narrator/Intv.:

Do you think they will?

Charles Bartram:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, they'll get everybody. They'll get them, because they know there's no future for them here.

Narrator/Intv.:

Already, there are signs of a community disintegrating. Homes are abandoned. One of the two schools has closed. Business has slowed to a halt at the barber shop.

Blair res. 1:

That's the ones we can name, and we probably missed some of them. I don't know.

Narrator/Intv.:

Here, the main activity is keeping tabs on the changes in the town.

Blair res. 1:

I got a list here, and we've been accounting how many families have moved out. We got about 136 that we can name that they have bought out, and they've gone. I think there's less than 80 families now.

Blair res. 2:

70.

Blair res. 1:

There's less than 70? Here now, so we're going to disappear we think.

Narrator/Intv.:

But there are West Virginians who see benefits in the changes brought by mining.

This is reclaimed land then?

Mike Snelling:

This is reclaimed land. This area was mined about eight years ago by Princess Beverly. As you can see, the grasses are starting to come back-

Narrator/Intv.:

The mining company operating above Blair refused to let us on site.

Mike Snelling:

This is what I wanted you to see. This is not virgin areas that we're going to be mining.

Narrator/Intv.:

But Mike Snelling from this privately owned company did show us around and stressed that much of the land mined here has already been badly damaged by decades of underground mining.

Mike Snelling:

What we do is we go into these areas, yes, we do mountaintop mining, but we put them back. We supply jobs for the people. We think we're doing really an improvement to the environment.

Narrator/Intv.:

Mike says it's impossible to put the mountains back as steep as they were, but mining companies are not alone in seeing advantages in this. Just a reminder that this is the state's chief environmental defender.

Michael Miano:

Now, some would say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I'm there with a side of a mountain as steep as a cow's face, the value, it would be low. But when you can flatten that area, so that you can build something on it, so that you can grow something on it, so that you can harvest from it, then the value increases significantly.

Narrator/Intv.:

None of this has swayed Larry Gibson as he continues on his mission to rally the community, give mountain people support, and listen to their stories.

Speaker 14:

Well, I heard a blast, and there was rocks a flying. I had my cat out here.

Narrator/Intv.:

The community complaints have prompted the mining industry to concede there've been at least some grounds for concern.

Speaker 14:

I thought well, Lord have mercy, and looked around, and he's on this hill here rocks and stuff flying.

Ben Green:

Yes, we've had flyrock incidents in which rock have come off of a shot that's gone wrong. We've had water quality dust. What I call the nuisance kinds of activity that, of course, have impacted people.

Narrator/Intv.:

But there are some consequences of mountaintop removal that can't be dismissed as mere nuisance issues. One of those, the creation of valley fills is now not only a concern for the communities but for the industry itself, precisely, because, it's integral to the mining process.

Once the coal is removed, this is where the top of the mountain ends up. The unwanted rock and rubble is dumped over the edge of the mountain into the valley below filling in where streams once ran, and often people once lived.

Already, 469 miles of West Virginia's streams have been buried like this. The state government has approved it without any scientific analysis of its long-term impact.

Activist:

The state when they permit these sites have only looked at one site at a time. They're not looking at the cumulative impacts. The 469 miles of streams that already buried, we don't know in the long run what kind of impact that's going to have.

Narrator/Intv.:

Answers are now being sought by the federal authorities.

Protestors:

Stop mountaintop removal. Stop mountaintop removal.

Narrator/Intv.:

It's become so politically uncomfortable for the state governor that he's set up a task force to examine the issue.

Protestor 1:

Why are we out here? Because we're not allowed on the panel inside. Citizens are not on the task force.

Narrator/Intv.:

But these people don't have confidence in the task force.

Task Force rep.:

How are current laws regarding blasting enforced-

Narrator/Intv.:

Michael Miano seems to regard it as unnecessary.

Michael Miano:

There is plenty of history and background to suggest that there is no significant impact on the environment.

Narrator/Intv.:

Well, you're hardly going to know about any environmental problems if you haven't done any scientific study.

Michael Miano:

Then we can use that argument, and we can be back in a cave deciding whether we should chip out a wheel or not. I'm here to tell you that if there was a significant concern with this type of mining that it would not be allowed.

Narrator/Intv.:

But the federal environment agencies beg to differ, and they're now holding up state mining permits until they get some answers on the long-term impact of West Virginia's valley fills. A development that has the mining industry decidedly testy.

Ben Green:

It's getting real critical as to whether they have to lay off miners. All of that has been brought about by the controversy, if you want to call it that, with the people in the southern part of the state particularly in the community at Blair.

Narrator/Intv.:

James Weekley sits overlooking his hollow at Blair.

James Weekley:

I've been going back to that rock ever since I was a little boy. It makes me think of the good times. Now, it hurts to watch and see what [inaudible].

Narrator/Intv.:

He doesn't yet know if his home will be spared. But West Virginia's hillbillies can at least claim to have made the coal companies take notice.