New Documentary Examines Mountain Top Mining; Battle for Blair Mountain
COSTELLO: There's a battle raging in the coal fields of West Virginia, a big controversy over mountain top removal mining.</s>VELSHI: And this is pitting environmentalists against miners. Some are saying it creates jobs, which this country needs, which West Virginia needs. Critics are arguing that it simply destroys nature.</s>COSTELLO: It sure is ugly when you see it. As part of her upcoming "Battle for Blair Mountain" documentary, Soledad O'Brien introduces us to people whose lives and futures are most affected, and she joins us live now. I can't wait to see this.</s>SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it has turned into a great documentary, and what great timing, because you guys have all been talking jobs, jobs, jobs all today, and of course that's how the presidential race is going to framed. I'm pretty sure of that. We're talking about mountain top removal mining. As you say, there are people who drive by and say that has ruined a mountain and others who say I see that mountain and I think jobs. I think productivity. I think my family working. And so it's really coming down to this debate, it's been framed as this debate between jobs and the environment, and should you have to pick between a healthy environment and a community that has been put to work? So we went to Blair Mountain in West Virginia to explore what their big fight is really over. Take a look.</s>O'BRIEN: James and Linda Dials live near Blair Mountain in West Virginia, ground zero in the battle over mountain top removal mining. One side says it's a fight to preserve jobs. The other side says it's about preserving mountains.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As far as the community goes, it's not much left any more. You know, there is still some people here, but in this area, that's all there is. The coal company, if it shuts down, it would be a ghost town. Nothing left.</s>O'BRIEN: People have said to me, you're asking me to pick between how a mountain looks and how a job, I'll pick the job. I'll pick someone's job because that means feeding their family and giving them a livelihood and a community.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it's temporary. The job is temporary. What they have done here is permanent.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See that mountain right there? If they would strip, you know, mountain top removal and left, I would be the first one to complain about it. That's my job is doing the reclamation, seeing that it's being done right.</s>O'BRIEN: James believes surface mining projects bring jobs into his area.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They need to understand that, yes, you can mine coal. You can give jobs to people, but you can't do it at the expense of their lives, their health, their water, their air. That's too much.</s>O'BRIEN: That's why, as 2011 begins, Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is weighing whether to allow the largest mountain top mining permit ever proposed in the state of West Virginia. It's called Spruce One.</s>O'BRIEN: So we document really the battle over Spruce One and what happens when the EPA yanks that permit. And really some of the coal mining housewives become activists. Some of the environmentalist activists who march on Blair Mountain try to bring attention to the issue. Ultimately I think it comes down to jobs. A coal miner can make $65,000 a year. Another job in retail does not come close to that.</s>COSTELLO: Is there somewhere they can meet in the middle? I know they try to rebuild the mountain tops, but the question you just told me is the coal company really doing that?</s>O'BRIEN: Mitigation is what it's called, and some people work to try to rebuild. You don't have to rebuild the mountain top but you have rebuild to the same slope, a similar slope. And there is a lot of question about that. Does it have the same integrity, meaning when it rains does stuff slide down the mountain, is it the same thing? This is what we investigate and uncover. And, ultimately, there are no green jobs at this moment moving into this location in Logan County. You know, Google is not about to build an office in Logan County and everyone will have a great job. That is a really realistic concern for the people who live there make $65,000 a year and can support their families.</s>ROMANS: It is not about Logan County because we are burning and using every lump of coal we can get out of the ground as a nation. You know, we are using all of that energy.</s>VELSHI: More than half the electricity in this country is generated by coal. Not natural gas, not nuclear, not wind, not water. It's coal.</s>O'BRIEN: I think it's typical not to have a long-range plan that transitions people from good jobs as opposed to transition them out of jobs altogether and then 10 years later, 15 years later, into a good job.</s>COSTELLO: But the thing I don't understand is if you look at West Virginia, it's a sad state. Not like it's --</s>COSTELLO: But it's suffering its own economic woes, despite the coal industry. So at some point, don't the state leaders say we got to figure out something else instead of just trying to save one industry?</s>O'BRIEN: They actually, financially, are doing well because of coal. Where they rank low is in certain measurements like education, et cetera, et cetera. You're sort of wondering, why is there so much poverty in that state at the same time? I think that's true, but that's one of those long-range questions can kill people in the short range. In the long-range we are trying to get people jobs.</s>VELSHI: It's not entirely different from the auto industry.</s>ROMANS: If it's a one horse state or one horse state or county --</s>COSTELLO: That's why I ask that question, because it's a frustration. Ohio has great talent, and you see the great talent moving out and not staying in Ohio because there is nothing there except certain industries.</s>O'BRIEN: Right. What you do is you have to have someone thinking about changing from a one-horse town but at the same time, transitioning people. I have been -- Shenandoah, Pennsylvania was a coal town. Coal left. Shenandoah is poor. No one moved in and no big industry has come over in Shenandoah.</s>COSTELLO: But Pittsburgh on the other hand was also a very big industrial town, is now a diversified base and doing well. So it's all about the planning.</s>ROMANS: It's the choices that our elected officials are making that are so important and we have so much faith in them.</s>COSTELLO: I know, but we love --</s>VELSHI: And we look forward to it.</s>O'BRIEN: And in -- in Logan County, the elected officials are underwritten, in many cases, by the coal companies.</s>ROMANS: I can't wait to see it, Soledad. And you can watch the whole documentary yourself "</s>WORKING IN AMERICA: THE BATTLE FOR BLAIR MOUNTAIN" this Sunday at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.</s>COSTELLO: Coming up next unbelievable, unlikely animal friendships like a gorilla and a kitten -- isn't this nice coming --</s>VELSHI: Look at this thing. There's a little kitten in there.</s>ROMANS: Ali loves this.</s>VELSHI: I love this. I'm crazy for this book.</s>COSTELLO: I'm concerned that you love this story so much.</s>VELSHI: I mean I want to know why the gorilla doesn't eat the kitten. But we have so many examples of pairings of animals that make no logical sense, unusual friendships, polar opposites in the animal world. We're going to sit down with the author next and check this whole thing out. You don't want to miss it. 45 minutes after the hour.