'Coal Country' film makes its debut in Kentucky

The quest to stop mountaintop-removal coal mining is a new incarnation of the civil rights movement, according to the producer of a new anti-MTR movie and other environmental activists. “This is our moment in time, and we shall overcome,” Mari-Lynn Evans, producer of “Coal Country: Rising Up Against Mountaintop Removal Mining,” proclaimed during a question-and-answer session following the Kentucky premiere of her film, in Lexington last night.

The 90-minute documentary examining the environmental and social impacts of mountaintop removal, debuted to a heavily anti-mining crowd at the Kentucky Theatre. The West Virginia premiere was met by pro-coal protesters, but if there were any in Lexington, they hid well. But activist Mickey McCoy of Inez, Ky., alluded to pro-coal sentiment in the coalfield, and could just as easily have been preaching when he told the crowd after the movie, “This movement is like the civil rights movement, and we need people from the outside. Without the outside people coming in during the civil rights movement we’d still be drinking from different water fountains in this theater tonight. “

An opening duet from Appalachian icon Jean Ritchie and coalfield crooner Kathy Mattea set the tone for the night as one of protest and some old-fashioned “rabble rousing.” The audience erupted as a young adult, shown in the movie at a public hearing on mountaintop removal mining, told a heated crowd that they were losing sight of the key issue in their haste to insult each other. “West Virginia is one of the poorest states, and southern West Virginia is the poorest part,” he said. “This would never happen in a place that wasn’t poor.”

Evans and the crowd chuckled at her assertion that there are two sides to the story as she explained her concern with including the pro-coal stance in the movie, but the film made good on its promise to show the pro-coal argument. Gene Kitts, senior vice president of mining services for the International Coal Group, was featured prominently along with Argus Energy environmental manager Randall Maggard, right.

“I try to do what’s right,” Maggard says in the film. “I mean when your kid comes home from school and says ‘Daddy, my teacher wants me to write a paper, a letter opposing mountaintop removal mining.’ I said, well, ‘Why don’t you just go ahead and tell them to write a letter trying to put me out of a job.’”

Mattea agreed that the fear that environmental protection means the loss of mining jobs is one that anti-coal groups need to respond to. “We have to find some structure for civil discourse,” she said. “I think instead of judging these people we have to try and understand what it’s like to stand in their shoes, so we can create a civil dialogue.” She added, “We need a comprehensive economic plan, not just an idea of something more. We’ve got to get economists into this discussion so there is something concrete. It can’t just be green jobs. It’s got to be bigger than that.”

At one point in the film, Kitts and West Virginia environmental lawyer Joe Lovett appear to be saying the same thing from different sides of the divide. “We’re not opposed to alternative energy,” Kitts said. “As other technologies gain some cost competitive characteristics, then the economy will naturally migrate toward those.” Lovett said, “I want to stress that I’m not saying that all miners should be thrown out of work tomorrow and all power plants should be shut down, but that we need to start making a transition away from burning coal.”

Despite that glimmer of hope, neither side admits in the film that they might be closer than they think, and the film’s supporters were quick to point out that the movie isn’t just about valley fills and water pollution. “It’s not only a film about environmental destruction,” Teri Blanton, a Kentuckians for the Commonwealth fellow, said. “It’s also a film about destruction of the people.”