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A film by Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller (The Appalachians) in association with Sierra Club Productions.
The economy of Appalachia has relied on coal for over a hundred years. Facing the devastation of mountaintop removal mining and the dangers of coal-powered electricity, the region must develop new, sustainable energy as well as jobs for its people. Through personal stories, the film will explore the ongoing conflict between active opponents of mountaintop removal and those in their own families or communities who insist they need the jobs it provides. We will meet activists, coal miners, politicians and coal company executives. One man shows us how his family's ancestral cemetery has been ravaged by mining machinery. Coal spokesmen describe how they try to 'reclaim' the flattened mountaintops. Visiting an elementary school in Marsh Fork, West Virginia, we hear that children are becoming ill from chemicals at a coal processing plant on the hill above the school. In another story, we will follow the struggle over Blair Mountain, the famous site of early 20th century labor wars. The area is currently threatened by mountaintop removal, and people are fighting to have it declared an historical landmark. "Coal Power" allows for the people of the region, who are dealing with these issues daily, to tell their own stories. We will for the first time see the process of a major environmental, social and economic struggle from the inside. "Coal Power" will humanize the current debate about the role of coal in America's energy future and take this dramatic story to the widest possible audience.
To see stories about mountaintop removal, click on the links below: Elise Young Dorothy Stowe Larry Gibson Dwight Siemiaczko Larry Bush Dewey Pauline Cantenberry Denver Mitchell Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use |
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This film, currently in production, will delve into the lives of people in West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky to see how coal, and especially mountaintop removal, has affected each of them individually and their community as a whole.
