The Last Mountain

"Heroes of American Democracy" –Robert F. Kennedy Jr

The documentary, The Last Mountain proves to be just that.  With citizen activist fighting for clean air and water against entrenched interests and corporate dollars, the documentary combines backstory, statistics, and human interest to explain more fully the narrative of where our electricity comes from.

There are approximately 30, or so documentaries regarding the subject of coal; the sad and unfortunate fact is, none of these documentaries  have been effective....stopping these mega coal companies.

I started watching as many documentaries from the list, and soon realized that all of these had a lot of the same people over and over and from both sides. In fact, many of the same stories are told in almost every film and every horror is repeated over and over.

Filmmakers keep coming back to this terrible problem....apparently the hard work isn't working.

Thoroughly fed up but refusing to give in, the residents of the Coal River valley in West Virginia endure earsplitting explosions, raining boulders, toxic sludge and poisoned wells.

Their tormentor is the union-busting, environmental-law-flouting Massey Energy Company and its use of the controversial mining strategy called mountaintop removal.

In the valleys of Appalachia, a battle is being fought over a mountain.

It is a battle with severe consequences that affect every American, regardless of their social status, economic background or where they live. It is a battle that has taken many lives and continues to do so the longer it is waged. It is a battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal.

The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America’s struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental concerns. Nowhere is that concern greater than in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, where a small but passionate group of ordinary citizens are trying to stop Big Coal corporations, like Massey Energy, from continuing the devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal.

The citizens argue the practice of dynamiting the mountain’s top off to mine the coal within pollutes the air and water, is responsible for the deaths of their neighbors and spreads pollution to other states. Yet, regardless of evidence supporting these claims, Big Coal corporations repeat the process daily in the name of profit. Massive profit allows Big Coal to wield incredible financial influence over lobbyists and government officials in both parties, rewrite environmental protection laws, avoid lawsuits and eliminate more than 40,000 mining jobs, all while claiming to be a miner’s best friend. As our energy needs increase, so does Big Coal’s control over our future. This fact and a belief that America was founded on the democratic principal that no individual or corporation owns the air and water and we all share the responsibility of protecting it, drives these patriotic citizens and their supporters from outside of Appalachia, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to keep fighting.

The central front in the battle for America’s energy future, with enormous consequences for the health and economic prospects of every citizen, is the fight for Appalachian coal. In valleys and on mountaintops throughout the heart of the eastern seaboard, the coal industry detonates the explosive power of a Hiroshima bomb each and every week, shredding timeless landscape to bring coal wealth to a few, and leaving devastated communities and poisoned water to many. With politicians siding with their corporate donors, it falls to a rag tag army of local activists to stand alone for the welfare of their families, their heritage and for a principled and sound energy future. Our film is their film – the uplifting story of the power of ordinary citizens to remake the future when they have the determination and courage to do so. –Bill Haney, Director

The FACTS

Almost half of the electricity produced in the U.S. comes from the burning of coal.

Sixteen pounds of coal is burned each day for every man woman and child in the US.

Thirty-percent of that coal comes from the mountains of Appalachia.

Burning coal is the number one source of greenhouse gases worldwide.

The DESTRUCTION

Mountain top removal has destroyed 500 Appalachian Mountains, decimated 1 million acres of forest, and buried 2000 miles of streams.

The COMPANY

Massey Energy is responsible for more mountaintop removal mining than any other company in the U.S.

[Massey agreed to be purchased by Alpha Natural Resources in mid-2011]

Massey Energy is America’s 3rd largest coal company by revenue, and it controls all the coal mining in Coal River Valley.

Between 2000 and 2006 Massey committed more than 60,000 environmental violations.

The WASTE

There are 312 coal sludge impoundments in Appalachia.

Massey’s 28 impoundments have spilled 24 times in the last decade, contaminating rivers with more than 300 million gallons of sludge; two times the amount released in BP’s Gulf oil disaster.

The JOBS

In the last 30 years the coal industry in West Virginia has increased production by 140% while eliminating more than 40,000 jobs.

The wind industry in the U.S. already operates more than 35,000 turbines, and employs 85,000 people– as many as work in the coal industry.

The Political INFLUENCE

In the last decade the coal mining industry spent more than $86 million, the railroad industry spent $350 million, and coal burning electric utilities spent more than $1 billion on political campaigns and lobbying.

The Health IMPACT

The health and environmental costs associated with mining, transporting and burning coal, as reported by a new Harvard Medical School study, are estimated to be $345 billion annually – or more than 17¢ per kilowatt hour. These costs are often referred to as “externalities” since they are costs borne by the public which are not reflected in the price of coal-fired electricity.

There are 600 coal-fired power plants across the United States, and over 600 ash ponds across the country, filled with 150 billion gallons of toxic sludge.

Each year emissions from coal-fired power plants contribute to more than 10 million asthma attacks, brain damage in up to 600,000 newborn children, and 43,000 premature deaths.[Mercury Emission -pdf]

The EPA has announced that in 48 states, it’s unsafe to eat many freshwater fish due to mercury contamination.

The COSTS

7.9¢ typical cost of electricity from wind per kilowatt hour

6.1¢ typical cost of electricity from coal per kilowatt hour

Per the Harvard Medical School report noted above, the cost of coal electricity goes up by approximately 17¢ per kilowatt hour, totaling 23.1¢ – or nearly three times that of wind – if you include the following costs borne by the public: Air Pollution Illnesses, Mercury Poisoning, Health Damages from Carcinogens, Public Health Cost to Appalachia, Climate Change Impact.

Wind POWER

The Wind Industry operates more than 35,000 turbines and employs 85,000 people in the U.S. – the same number the coal industry employs. In 2009, enough turbines were built to power 2.4 million homes.

In 1991, the Department of Energy published a “National Wind Resource Inventory” which pointed out that three states – Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas – have enough harnessable wind energy to supply the nation’s electricity needs. However, since the report was based on 1991 wind technologies and turbines are so much more efficient today, we now know that the DOE’s projection was a gross underestimate.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Renewable Portfolio Standard of 20% by 2020 would create: 185,000 new jobs from development, $25.6B in income to farmers, ranchers, and rural landowners and $10.5B in electricity and natural gas savings to consumers by 2020.

It is a fight for our future that affects us all.

The PEOPLE

Maria Gunnoe lives at the mouth of a narrow valley (“hollow”) in Boone County, West Virginia. Severe flooding on her property began soon after the 1,200 acre Jupiter surface mine started removing the ridge above Gunnoe’s ancestral home in 2000. The flooding continued on a regular basis and catapulted Gunnoe, a waitress and mother of two, into action. The daughter, granddaughter, and sister of coal miners, Gunnoe now works full time for the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) and has become one of Appalachia’s most potent spokespeople and persuasive community activists. In 2009, she was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize. Maria believes that the flattening of 500 mountains in Appalachia is destroying not just the mountains but Appalachia’s communities, culture and rich heritage.

Bo Webb is a Vietnam veteran, a coal miner’s son, and a former tool-and-die shop owner in Cleveland who moved back to his family home in West Virginia in 2001. Webb’s hopes for a peaceful retirement of hunting and fishing were never realized. Instead, he found that his property, homesteaded by his family in the 1830s on the banks of the Coal River, was under siege by a coal company’s blasting of a mountain ridge right above his house. In 2004, Webb co-founded the grassroots environmental group Mountain Justice.   

He has organized dozens of protests and acts of civil disobedience, has been arrested himself five times for his efforts to save Coal River Mountain from obliteration and feels that: 

“Coal River Mountain stands as a symbol of what could be, and what the future of America – not just Appalachia – but what the future of America can hold.”  –Bo Webb

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with his reputation as a defender of the environment stems from a litany of successful lawsuits against polluters. Mr. Kennedy was named one of Time Magazine’s “Heroes for the Planet” for helping Riverkeeper lead the fight to restore the Hudson River. The group's achievement has spawned more than 200 Waterkeeper organizations on six continents. Kennedy is Chief Prosecuting Attorney for Hudson Riverkeeper, President of the Waterkeeper Alliance and Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is also a Professor at Pace University School of Law and co-director of the Law School’s Environmental Litigation Clinic. Kennedy has been widely published in periodicals and written several books, include the New York Times’ bestseller Crimes Against Nature (2004), which calls into question the environmental policies of the US. In 2009 Kennedy was named one of Rolling Stone's "100 Agents of Change."

Jennifer Hall-Massey lives in Prenter, West Virginia, just 36 miles outside of the capital, Charleston. Her small town has lost six neighbors to brain tumors, including Hall-Massey’s 29-year-old brother. According to a New York Times article: 

“tests showed that their well water contained toxic amounts of lead, manganese, barium and other metals that can contribute to organ failure or developmental problems.” 

The Times also reported that 

“in the eight miles surrounding Mrs. Hall-Massey’s home, coal companies have injected more than 1.9 billion gallons of coal slurry and sludge into the ground since 2004.” 

Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors have sued nine coal companies, accusing them of contaminating local water supplies with dangerous waste.

Joe Lovett,  founder and executive director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, has fought on behalf of dozens of communities across West Virginia whose health, property, and livelihoods have been damaged and polluted by large coal companies. He has served as counsel in landmark legal cases challenging coal mining practices. Lovett's work has resulted in the contribution of millions of dollars to the West Virginia Coal Mining Special Reclamation Fund.

Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association which represents more than 90 percent of underground and surface coal mining production in the state, calls his constituency: 

“practicing environmentalists” 

He feels that protecting jobs is his top priority.   

"I’ve got people who depend on mining coal… They’re making electricity for you.” –Bill Raney, President, WVCA

Don Blankenship was CEO of Massey Energy until retiring on the heels of civil and criminal investigations of the company in December, 2010. Massey is the largest coal company in West Virginia, has more mountaintop removal mines across Appalachia than any other company and controls all mining in the Coal River Valley. 

Blankenship, who grew up in the coalfields, has succeeded in evicting the unions from Massey mines and replacing jobs with explosives and massive earth moving machines. Through mechanization over the last 30 years the coal industry in West Virginia has increased production by 140% while eliminating more than 40,000 jobs. Blankenship led Massey throughout its expansion of mountaintop removal operations and as it suffered the worst U.S. mine disaster in 40 years, killing 29 miners in April 2010. In 2008 Massey paid the EPA $20 million, the largest fine in EPA’s history, for committing more than 60,000 environmental violations. 

Blankenship denies that global warming exists, and in 2009 said:  

“I really believe that the climate is changing naturally and that the temperature for the last eight or nine years has been cooling, and that the Arctic ice has been increasing.”

Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, has long had a lot of influence in West Virginia. The top executive of the company that owns the mine where 25 miners died this week looms large in state affairs both because of Massey 's economic importance and because of his own penchant for political bluster. But in 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Blankenship might be wielding too much influence, after he spent $3 million of his own money to get a judge elected to a West Virginia court that was ruling on a Massey-related case. 

As detailed in an ABC News investigation, Blankenship vacationed on the Riviera with one West Virginia Supreme Court Justice and underwrote an ad campaign supporting the election of another while a $50 million judgment against Massey Energy was before the court. Blankenship's apparently successful multi-million-dollar attempt to change the composition of the court became the basis of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision -- and the source of a slew of controversial television ads. 

"Don Blankenship prides himself on being tough and talking tough..." 

...said David Fawcett, a Pittsburgh attorney who has tangled with Blankenship more than once. 

            "He's tried to take that tough guy approach into the political and judicial arenas."

Fawcett helped win a $50 million judgment against Massey in a West Virginia court for several smaller mining companies who claimed that Massey Energy had driven them out of business by defaulting on contracts and committing fraud. Two years later, as Massey was appealing the verdict, Blankenship spent about $3 million on campaign ads meant to knock Justice Warren McGraw off the West Virginia Supreme Court. 

The commercials accused McGraw of "letting a child rapist go free" and of being too "radical" for West Virginia.

The West Virginia Supreme Court finally ruled on the appeal of the $50 million verdict in the case known as Caperton v. Massey. Justice Benjamin refused to recuse himself from the case, and twice provided the deciding vote in Massey's favor. 

The jury verdict against Massey was overturned.

A second state Supreme Court justice who initially voted to overturn the Massey verdict later recused himself from the case after pictures surfaced showing him on vacation with Blankenship. Elliott "Spike" Maynard was seen in timestamped photos with Blankenship apparently taken on three successive days in Monaco while Caperton v. Massey was before the court. 

When an ABC News reporter attempted to question Blankenship about the Maynard photos, and his personal relationship with West Virginia's Supreme Court justices, he issued a warning before grabbing the reporter's camera and shoving him. 

"If you're going to start taking pictures of me...you're liable to get shot." –Don Blankenship, CEO Massey Energy

Ed Wiley is a former Massey Energy contractor turned activist. His granddaughter Kayla who Wiley calls “Possum,” attended Marsh Fork Elementary School in the Coal River Valley which sits next to a Massey-operated industrial coal processing plant. The Marsh Fork children and teachers have been afflicted with more than their share of respiratory ailments and cancer and Wiley’s mission has been to have the school moved away from the dangers of nearby coal toxins. He has staged numerous protests, confronted the Governor, and walked 455 miles from West Virginia to Washington, D.C. to present his grievances to the late Senator Robert Byrd.

Lorelei Scarbro, the granddaughter, daughter, and widow of coal miners, lives in the shadow of Coal River Mountain, the last mountain left intact in the Coal River Valley. Massey Energy owns four permits to demolish and mine over 6,000 acres (10 square miles) of the mountain. But Scarbro and fellow community members at Coal River Mountain Watch propose a 328-megawatt wind farm on the high ridges of the mountain instead. The proposed wind farm would generate more long-term jobs and revenue than the mountaintop removal coal mine and provide electricity to 70,000 homes. Scarbro notes: 

“This county stands to gain $1.742 million dollars from this mountain annually [from a wind farm], as opposed to the $36,000 the county would earn [annually] from the mountaintop removal operation.” 

David Aaron Smith, from Louisiana, is a member of Climate Ground Zero. 

He has participated in a number of protests including a tree-sit in January 2009 when he and two others perched themselves 60 feet up in three trees just yards from explosives, in a bid to prevent Coal River Mountain from being blown up for the coal underneath. 

Susan Bird’s Shippingport, Pennsylvania house is located a few miles from the Bruce Mansfield power plant, one of the nation's largest coal-fired utilities. She joined a state environmental group, PennFuture, after toxic fly ash from the power plant carpeted her neighborhood. Bird’s son is autistic and she says:

“As a parent, you sit there and wonder:

     Did I do this? 

     Did I cause some of this? 

You know, if I lived somewhere else, would he have been healthier?”

Read more about the people involved  >>

The ANSWER

If we all switched to 100% wind power via green mountain energy or whatever green company in your area provides clean and ethical energy than these monsters wouldn't have a reason to destroy West VA and more.

The ALLIANCES

The following organizations share The Last Mountain’s goal of ending mountaintop removal and bringing justice and protections of the law to the people of Appalachia. All of the viewpoints expressed in the film are not necessarily the viewpoints of these organizations.

Appalachian Voices is an award-winning environmental non-profit committed to protecting the land, air and water of the central and southern Appalachian region.

Center for Biological Diversity works through science, law and creative media to secure a future for all species, great or small, hovering on the brink of extinction.

Coal River Mountain Watch is a grassroots organization working to stop the destruction of communities and environment by mountaintop removal mining, to improve the quality of life and help rebuild sustainable communities.

Credo Action is more than a network, its a movement.

Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment.

ilovemountains.org is a fabulous network of local, state and regional organizations across Appalachia who are working together to end mountaintop removal and create a prosperous future for the region.

League of Conservation Voters is a national non-profit working to turn environmental values into national priorities by advocating for sound environmental policies and electing pro-environment candidates who will adopt and implement such policies.

Mountain Justice is a grassroots Appalachian based organization working to end mountaintop removal and protect the cultural and natural heritage of Appalachia through public education, nonviolent civil disobedience and citizen action.

Rainforest Action Network campaigns for the forests, their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life by transforming the global marketplace through education, grassroots organizing and non-violent direct action.

Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition is a West Virginia based non-profit dedicated to ending mountaintop removal and water contamination from coal slurry injection, improving the enforcement of mining laws and establishing clean elections system of campaign financing.

Sierra Club was Founded by John Muir, the Sierra Club is a grassroots organization working to protect communities, wild places and the planet itself.

350.org is a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis.

Waterkeeper Alliance is a grassroots advocacy organization working to defend communities against anyone who threatens their right to clean water.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. serves as the organization’s President.

Windustry is a nonprofit working to promote progressive renewable energy solutions and empower communities to develop wind energy as an environmentally sustainable asset.

The documentary makes it clear that the people pushing back are up against very heavy hitters. This includes representatives from both political parties, for varied interests, as well as the coal industry.

The NEWS & UPDATES 

A longtime subordinate of ex-Massey Energy chief Don Blankenship publicly implicated his boss for the first time Thursday in what appears to be a widespread corporate practice of warning coal miners about surprise inspections.

At a federal hearing in West Virginia in which he pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy, former White Buck Coal Co. President David Hughart pointed to Blankenship, who ran the former Richmond-based coal producer and its predecessor companies for nearly two decades.

The charges against Hughart grew from federal prosecutors’ continuing investigation of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, a 2010 explosion that killed 29 Massey Energy miners, and could bolster other criminal cases they might be building.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin refused to comment on the direction of his investigation, but Hughart’s testimony was the latest signal that he could be working his way up the ladder to what experts say would be a rare prosecution of a major corporate executive.

Hughart, 54, was accused of working with others to ensure miners at White Buck and other Massey Energy subsidiaries got advance warning about federal inspections between 2000 and March 2010. Such warnings let miners and managers conceal potentially deadly conditions that could lead to a shutdown in production.

Hughart spoke so softly that those in the courtroom struggled to hear him say he had no hesitation about pleading guilty.

“I allowed … it to happen....I was responsible for the operation.”

Judge Irene Berger asked Hughart if such warnings were company policy and, if so, who ordered it.

“The chief executive officer,” Hughart replied.

Though he was not mentioned by name in court, Blankenship was CEO at the time. And outside the courtroom, Karen Hughart confirmed that’s who her husband meant.  She said:

“Anyone that did not comply was threatened....we lived under fear.”

A former Upper Big Branch superintendent was recently sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges he defrauded the government through his actions at the mine.

Blankenship retired in late 2010, about eight months after the nation’s worst coal mining disaster in four decades, and several victims’ relatives have demanded he be prosecuted.

The mine has since been sealed by the company that bought out Massey Energy, Virginia-based Alpha Natural Resources.

Blankenship has been re-emerging as a public figure over the past year, launching an absurb website where he shares his thoughts and calls the day the mine near Montcoal exploded one of the worst of his life.

Many thousands of people across the country hold Blankenship personally responsible, accusing him of putting profits before people throughout his long career as a union-busting operator.

The CONSPIRACY REVEALED

Multiple investigations found the Upper Big Branch blast was caused by blatant disregard of federal safety laws, and Blankenship had a well-documented record of micromanaging his mines.  A relatively routine plea hearing in Beckley, W.Va, Thursday, took an unexpected and dramatic turn when a former Massey Energy executive implicated former CEO Don Blankenship in a criminal conspiracy. 

It's the first time Blankenship has been publicly named as an alleged conspirator in the ongoing federal criminal investigation of the 2010 explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch coal mine.  The accusation is also the first public indication that Blankenship specifically is in the sights of federal prosecutors.  Blankenship's name was not uttered by former Massey executive David Hughart as he pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts for his role in providing advance warnings to miners underground when federal inspectors arrived on the surface for surprise safety inspections. Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette was in the courtroom when U.S. District Judge Irene Berger asked Hughart "to name his co-conspirators," as Ward reports.

"Finally there is a witness to Blankenship's misdeeds who will step forward and tell what he knows...hopefully more will follow suit." –Cecil Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of America

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