User:Farkas.aj/TLM
Wikipedia entry - The Last Mountain (film)
The Last Mountain | |
---|---|
File:TLM poster.jpg | |
Directed by | Bill Haney |
Produced by |
|
Cinematography |
|
Edited by | Peter Rhodes |
Distributed by | Dada Films |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 95 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Last Mountain is a 2011
Story
The Last Mountain is a feature documentary that tells the story of the fight for Coal River Mountain in
The film is told from the point of view of environmental litigator and activist
Five hundred of
The Last Mountain makes the point that the fight for Coal River Mountain, although a local story, has national and international significance. Nearly 50% of America’s electricity comes from burning coal
Characters
The film takes viewers to the town of Prenter, West Virginia, in the Coal River Valley where a citizen-turned-activist Jennifer Hall-Massey explains that six of her immediate neighbors have died of brain tumors and the only thing they all have in common is well water. As reported by the NY Times[10], Hall-Massey along with 264 of her neighbors, are suing the local coal companies[11] and maintain that the companies have pumped millions of gallons of coal slurry into the ground surrounding Prenter polluting their well water with heavy metals like arsenic and lead, and causing disease.
Another citizen activist, Ed Wiley, a former mountaintop removal coal miner himself, who lives in the Coal River Valley, is trying to move his granddaughter’s school, Marsh Fork Elementary, to a safer location. The school sits several hundred feet below an earthen dam holding back 1.8 billion gallons of coal waste in a slurry pond discharged by an industrial coal preparation plant next door to the school[12]. Wiley’s granddaughter told him that the coal was making the children sick, driving Wiley to take his protest to then Governor Joe Manchin (now the U.S. Senator from West Virginia), and demand help from the state. Manchin and other West Virginia politicians argue that the state’s economy and its jobs depend on coal mining. But the film demonstrates that while coal production has increased 140%[13] due to the use of massive mining equipment and explosives, the number of jobs has decreased by 65%[14] over the last 30 years.
The film presents Don Blankenship as an antagonist. The ex-CEO of Massey Energy does not believe in
Meanwhile, activists like Bo Webb and Lorelei Scarbro, who live in the shadow of Coal River Mountain, have organized a group of citizens to propose that instead of destroying the mountain, a sustainable wind farm be built on the mountain’s ridges instead[18] – an energy project that could power 70,000 homes with renewable energy virtually forever[19]. But Massey Energy has a permit to destroy over 6,000 acres of the mountain instead. Over time, the wind farm would provide more jobs to the community, and on day one it would pay more taxes to the county than the coal strip mine, Scarbro explains. Members of Climate Ground Zero climb trees in the blasting zone of Coal River Mountain one Winter night to sit in protest for 9 days until they are arrested for attempting to halt the destruction of this symbolic mountain[20].
While Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. maintains that “The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind,” The Last Mountain concludes by exploring small scale wind projects which have paid for themselves within a few years, and ends with the fate of Coal River Mountain still in the balance.
See also
- Climate Ground Zero
- Coal River Mountain Watch
- West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
- MACED
References
- indieWIRE. Retrieved 8 March 2011.
- ^ The long-term economic benefits of wind versus mountaintop removal coal on Coal River Mountain, West Virginia, Downstream Strategies, 2008.
- ^ North America Goldman Prize Winner Maria Gunnoe, Goldman Prize 2009.
- ^ Bo Webb, Encore Careers, 2010 Purpose Prize
- ^ National Memorial for the Mountains, Appalachian Voices, accessed 2 June, 2010.
- ^ EPA Issues Comprehensive Guidance to Protect Appalachian Communities From Harmful Environmental Impacts of Mountaintop Mining, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed 1 April, 2010.
- ^ Electric Power Industry 2009: Year in Review DOE Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual, revised April 2011.
- ^ Coal Production and Number of Mines by State and Mine Type, DOE Energy Information Administration, accessed 2 June, 2010.
- ^ Trends in Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions through 2003 (via Internet Archive), Netherlands Environmental Assesment Agency, 2005.
- ^ Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering by Charles Duhigg, the New York Times (Toxic Waters series), 12 Sept, 2009.
- ^ Boone County Residents Suing 3 Coal Companies (with video), by Elizabeth Noreika, ABC affiliate WCHS News, 23 Jan, 2009.
- ^ The Rape of Appalachia, by Michael Schnayerson, Vanity Fair, May 2006, pp.140-157.
- ^ WVa Mine Data Tonnage Reports (choose 1978), West Virginia Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training. 2004./Coal Production and Number of Mines by State and Mine Type (2008) DOE Energy Information Administration. 3 Feb, 2011.
- ^ Data provided by DOE Energy Information Administration, 2010.
- ^ Massey Energy Faces Legal Challenge for Clean Water Act Violations. Sierra Club, 27 April, 2010.
- ^ Massey Energy to Pay Largest Civil Penalty Ever for Water Permit Violations U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 17 Jan, 2008./Massey downplays lawsuit. Associated Press, via OVEC, 15 May, 2007
- ^ U.S. v. Massey Energy, Civil Action No. 2:07-0299, U.S. District Court Southern District of West Virginia, December 2007.
- ^ Save Coal River Mountain!, Coal River Mountain Watch.
- ^ The long-term economic benefits of wind versus mountaintop removal coal on Coal River Mountain, West Virginia, Downstream Strategies, 2008
- ^ Latest Massey Tree-Sit Ends After More Than 8 Days, by Ken Ward, Jr. Charleston Gazette, 29 Jan, 2010.
External links
- Official website
- The Last Mountain at IMDb
- The Last Mountain at AllMovie
- The Last Mountain at Rotten Tomatoes
Category:2011 films Category:American films Category:English-language films Category:American documentary films Category:Documentary films about environmental issues Category:Mountaintop removal mining