Mountain Mourning - Look What They've Done

From http://www.PatchWorkFilms.com
Maria's Backyard. An outing with Maria Gunnoe in Bob White, West Virginia, provides a snapshot of the Mountaintop Removal Mining that has moved into her back yard. Filmmakers traverse the rocky road up Cazy Mountain to survey the aftermath of a strip-mining operation. Maria's Native American ancestry is revealed through her memories of family and their respect for the land. Her story is one of courage and strength that is woven around the heart by musical recordings of her mother, father and uncle. "To me, that right there is just amazing! Knowing what it was before, just look what they've done." Maria Gunnoe.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• mountains
• mountaintop
• removal
• coal
• mining
• west
• virginia
• god
• environment

[blasterswife]

Prove you don't like Surface Mining

Turn off you lights!!

[agustgudmundsson]

Henceforth I will assume anyone who makes such comments and like the one below is inviting the rest of us to dump our garbage and sewage in your living room because it is good for the jobs provided by the dumpers. Your logic is ill. Try this. If you like money - fine. You don't steal. You work. Spoiling the entire state's water supply for your pocket change is stealing.  It has nothing to do with turning off the lights. If you want the coal, go underground and get it!

[shellda4q2]

Just give our Governor, Senators, and Representatives a big THANK YOU for what they are allowing these companys to do here, because they don't give a damn as long as they keep getting monetary support from them. That's why they changed the signs from "WILD and WONDERFUL" to "OPEN FOR BUISNESS" more like OPEN FOR RAPING !!! such assholes!!

[agustgudmundsson]

Shella you are so right. The new permit in Anstead will kill tourism. That's like killing the chicken that lays your eggs. Get a few bucks now from coal extraction taxes and end.. Well, just go to google and type in Anstead Hiking. (no quotes) and you will see that this area is a multi-million dollar tourist area that will be destroyed if the mountains are removed. It don't get it but I am working on how to get people to get the politicians who make the rules to get it. Can you help?

[PatchWork304]

You are not very well informed. Tourism is the number one employer in the state. Mountaintop removal kills tourist attractions. Would you like your daughter to say: "I live in a state that is as pretty as Disney World. Or would you have her tell her friends that she came from a state that used to have clean water and around 10 heavy equipment workers put 200,000 tourism workers out of work because they hauled off the the state to China.

[JPAWV35]

born and raised in clinton camp 15 minutes from bob white wv...... you tell em try looking at google earth its sad what has been done to our home

[KeyLimePiee14]

It's a sad day when one of the oldest and most beautiful mountain ranges on this Earth are being destroyed for the selfishness of humans. A sad, sad day.

[PennyPenny1990]

Underground mining method may be considered to be used when the stripping ratio costs exceeds the cost of going underground. The reason why they chose not to mine underground is because underground mining has a low production rate compared to surface mining , size of equipment is limited, higher capital costs, and safety issues. I'm a mining engineer.

[LeftyAintright]

Who has the right to destroy a mountain? No man I say, men are only upon this earth for but a moment.

[Zoth77]

And when the coal is gone or made obsolete either constructively by legislation, or inherently by innovation, and WV is left as nothing but a mountainless area riddled with toxic pools of shit, and the coal companies go elsewhere to rape other states' lands, we will be a ghost town anyway. . . . But at least the coal companies are makin' money!!

[grandmachristine42]

Jobs jobs. Selling crack is a sort of job and so is kidnapping children and selling them into slavery. What's needed is DECENT JOBS that don't destroy the soil, the water, the air, and the people.Mountaintop removal is an indecent sort of job that guarantees that the future will be even uglier and sicker than today. I understand that desperate people will do horrible things when they see no choice. Its tragic that they're in that position.

[BreannaMichellex3]

i think underground coal minning is fine,but not surface minning.

[diesel9331]

I support your fight! Awesome video!

[blasterswife]

He does do road construction as well as MTR but they only build so many roads.