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Coal Country (2009) Phylis Geller

The main issue brought up by the movie is regarding the fact that coal produces a little more than 50% of this countries power needs. Coal is a substance that is extremely dirty and its worldwide use leads to global warming. In addition, the processing of coal results in billions of gallons of water becoming hazardous to our health. The burning of coal also produces coal ash which is very hazardous to both humans and the environment.
 * __Ecological__ – The general way that these coal companies get coal is through the method known as mountaintop removal. This method quite literally means that the companies remove the whole mountaintop to be able to reach the coal. The simplest way to think of this is by imagining a triangle that has its top part removed which results in a trapezoid being formed. Now image that you do the same procedure indicated before but instead do it with two triangles that are right next to each other. You will put the top parts of the triangles you removed in the valley that is formed by having the triangles next to each other. These valleys are filled out with any rock and material that is useless in the production of coal.
 * If you look at the areas that have been or currently ongoing the mountaintop removal process from a plain, it would seem that you are looking at the moon’s surface instead of a once forested area. One must also note that countless trees and other life forms, be they animals or plants, have been removed due to acres of forest areas being cut down.
 * Companies say that they reclaim these mountaintops but at the same time only a small percentage of mountaintops actually get reclaimed. On paper these companies do everything correctly but the fact is the removing the mountaintop has a much great negative impact to the environment than the positive impact of reclaiming the area. The removal of these mountaintops results in the loss and removal of plant and animal biodiversity. The removal of the mountain also includes the removal of the topsoil which is lost forever and is generally not added back during reclamation. The waste from these mountains are thrown into valleys which results in the covering up and destruction of over 1000 miles of rivers of various sizes each day.
 * The action of these coal companies results in the contamination of the water system as well. The contamination of the water system results in severe health related issues such as cancer which often results in the death of the person who used the contaminated water. From 1979 till present, there have been a little more than 530 deaths per year that is attributed to the contaminated water system.
 * One must also not forget that the process and burning of coal is extremely hazardous. In order to extract coal from the rock, water is added to separate the two materials. The resulting water is extremely hazardous to both humans and environment. This waste water is basically thrown into a big lake, dam or some sort of structure and which generally forgotten about. The structures used to contain the hazardous water are often not properly built and allows the leakage of the water into to environment. The movie stated that 25% of the new structures built have leakage related problems.
 * __Economic__ – It is not profitable for coal companies to do the century’s old practice of underground mining. Instead it is much more cost effective or cheaper for the company to blow off the entire mountaintop, so that they can have access to the black gold known as coal. For the most part, mining is machine intensive not labor intensive. As a result, is is also cost effective to use huge machines like drag-lines to collect the coal instead of using hundreds of workers to collect the coal. “The mule is more important than the men” sums up the coal companies view about labor.
 * Some additional issues are in relationship to the economic conditions of the community itself. As a result of a high amount of coal ash being released into the environment, people are not able to sell their homes. One woman said that the original price for her home was $150,000, however due to the ash she could only be able to sell her house for $12,000. In addition, as a result of being a coal town, these towns are one of the poorest areas in the country. The surrounding areas that are not coal producing areas have high tourists traffic due to the fact that the natural beauty of the area has not been damaged by the coal.
 * One must also not forget that the process and burning of coal is extremely hazardous. In order to extract coal from the rock, water is added to separate the two materials. The resulting water is extremely hazardous to both humans and environment. This waste water is basically thrown into a big lake, dam or some sort of structure and which generally forgotten about. The structures used to contain the hazardous water are often not properly built and allows the leakage of the water into to environment. The movie stated that 25% of the new structures built have leakage related problems.
 * __Economic__ – It is not profitable for coal companies to do the century’s old practice of underground mining. Instead it is much more cost effective or cheaper for the company to blow off the entire mountaintop, so that they can have access to the black gold known as coal. For the most part, mining is machine intensive not labor intensive. As a result, is is also cost effective to use huge machines like drag-lines to collect the coal instead of using hundreds of workers to collect the coal. “The mule is more important than the men” sums up the coal companies view about labor.
 * Some additional issues are in relationship to the economic conditions of the community itself. As a result of a high amount of coal ash being released into the environment, people are not able to sell their homes. One woman said that the original price for her home was $150,000, however due to the ash she could only be able to sell her house for $12,000. In addition, as a result of being a coal town, these towns are one of the poorest areas in the country. The surrounding areas that are not coal producing areas have high tourists traffic due to the fact that the natural beauty of the area has not been damaged by the coal.
 * __Economic__ – It is not profitable for coal companies to do the century’s old practice of underground mining. Instead it is much more cost effective or cheaper for the company to blow off the entire mountaintop, so that they can have access to the black gold known as coal. For the most part, mining is machine intensive not labor intensive. As a result, is is also cost effective to use huge machines like drag-lines to collect the coal instead of using hundreds of workers to collect the coal. “The mule is more important than the men” sums up the coal companies view about labor.
 * Some additional issues are in relationship to the economic conditions of the community itself. As a result of a high amount of coal ash being released into the environment, people are not able to sell their homes. One woman said that the original price for her home was $150,000, however due to the ash she could only be able to sell her house for $12,000. In addition, as a result of being a coal town, these towns are one of the poorest areas in the country. The surrounding areas that are not coal producing areas have high tourists traffic due to the fact that the natural beauty of the area has not been damaged by the coal.
 * Some additional issues are in relationship to the economic conditions of the community itself. As a result of a high amount of coal ash being released into the environment, people are not able to sell their homes. One woman said that the original price for her home was $150,000, however due to the ash she could only be able to sell her house for $12,000. In addition, as a result of being a coal town, these towns are one of the poorest areas in the country. The surrounding areas that are not coal producing areas have high tourists traffic due to the fact that the natural beauty of the area has not been damaged by the coal.

Sadly, for the time being at least there are not many alternatives that are available to be used to try to fix the various coal related issues. Some suggestions lie in the hands of the people and not at the corporate level. For example, people can rally support for their causes and rally their supporters in the form of financial institutions to try to stop coal companies from funding initiatives of adding more coal plants to an area.

Another option is that a person can go to Washington D.C and try getting support from their state representatives. In addition, the simple practice of teaching people the issues related to coal usage will be beneficial for those that may not know the issues and may take the same side on the issue as you.

Some other alternatives mostly lie in corporate and government hands. For example we can switch from coal to produce our power to other alternatives fuels that are much greener and generally less harmful to the environment. Some of the alternative fuel sources include but are not limited to solar, geothermal, wind and bio-fuels. These alternative fuels almost have the same cost in comparison to coal if you look at the matrix of issues in relationship to coal.

One of the scenes I found most compelling was when the woman stated the current value of the house. In this country, one of the ways that a person can increase their wealth is to own a house and let it increase in value to sell it later. However, the woman would have lost 92% of the value on the house if she had sold it.

The scene that did not compel me was one of the solutions brought up by the coal company. I think the companies solution to the release of coal ash was to put a balloon like structure around the coal plant to prevent the ash from escaping. I do not exactly know how this works, I will dig deeper into the issue, but a balloon can only expand so much until it leaks or explodes. My assumption was correct when the film stated that the structure had leaked a few times already.