West Virginia activist's struggle with coal industry became a book, and now a movie

A West Virginia woman's journey to push for stricter, safer coal-mining laws was first turned into a book, and now the story of Trish Bragg is being made into a movie, with parts of filming recently taking place in the community of Pie in Mingo County, reports Julia Roberts Goad of the Gilbert Times, a weekly in the southern part of the state near the Kentucky border. (Charleston Gazette photo by Brian Ferguson: Bragg at a public hearing on mountaintop removal in 1998)

Bragg's story was first told in Penny Loeb's book Moving Mountains, which "chronicles the struggle the Pie community has faced since the wells that supplied water to homes ran dry as a result of underground mining," reports Goad. Now, the book is being turned into a movie about "the struggle to find the balance of making a living from coal mining and the responsibility of the coal companies to extract coal while doing as little damage as possible to the land and the people the industry supports."

Author Penny Loeb (Goad photo)

Bragg told Goad, “I am not against coal mining. I was never against mining, I just think it should be done responsibly.” Bragg's journey into the world of coal mining began in 1976 when she moved to West Virginia from North Carolina. In 1994, when her neighbors began losing the source of their water, Bragg began to educate herself "about the state Department of Environmental Protection, mining laws, environmental groups and community activism." (Read more)