It shouldn?t be legal. But it is.
The coal industry uses more than 3 million pounds of explosives a day to blow up West Virginian mountain tops, said activist and tenth-generation West Virginian, Julia Bonds.
Bonds recounts the terror of living in a coal war zone during the documentary “Black Diamonds,” premiering in Baltimore on Wednesday. Narrated by actress Lauren Graham, the film depicts how surface and underground coal mining for energy destroy West Virginia ? the most biodiverse ecosystem after the rainforest, according to “Black Diamonds” director and producer, Catherine Pancake.
Every time you flip the light switch, you bombmy home, Bonds said.
“It?s easy for Americans not to look at where their electricity comes from ? so-called cheap energy,” she said.
Home-video footage included in the 90-minute documentary puts viewers in the middle of thick, black dust clouds immediately after a blast.
“It?s very hard living with it,” Bonds said about the explosions. “They shake my home and nerves, cause cracks in houses and pollute the air and water.”
Watching a scene of a rally captured in “Black Diamonds” brings tears to Bonds? eyes, she said.
“I spoke at a march for a 3-year- old boy who had been crushed in his sleep by a flying boulder on a strip-mined road,” she said. “Seeing it brought me back to the intense moment and sadness.”
Pancake, born and raised in West Virginia, decided a documentary needed to be made when she learned residents who were not the type to take legal action were compelled to sue the powerful coal industry, she said.
Pancake first learned about West Virginia?s bleak future in the 1970s from her father, a Presbyterian minister, who warned people of the looming dangers.
“That was when it was starting, there were no rule or laws at all,” she said.
She interviewed government officials, waitresses, lawyers, activists, scientists, coal miners and coal industry advocates for the documentary.
“She did an excellent job piecing together the story of oppression, and looking at what it costs to have convenience,” Bonds said. “The coal, oil and diamond industries, they?re all using the same handbook on how to destroy people.”
IF YOU GO
Black Diamonds: Mountaintop Removal & The Fight For Coalfield Justice
» Venue: Rotunda Cinematheque, 711 W. 40th St., Baltimore
» Times: 8 p.m. Wednesday
» Tickets: $10
» More info: 410-235-4800, www.blackdiamondsmovie.com
