Beverly May and Terry Ratliff grew up like kin on opposite sides of a mountain ridge in eastern Kentucky. Now in their fifties, the two find themselves in the midst of a debate dividing their community and the world: who controls, consumes, and benefits from our planet's shrinking supply of natural resources?
While Beverly organizes her neighbors and leads a legal fight to stop Miller Brothers Coal Company from advancing into her hollow, Terry considers signing away the mining rights to his backyard-a decision that could destroy not only the two friends' homes, but the peace and environment surrounding their community.
JEN GILOMEN is Director of Public Media Strategies at the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC).
See: Shnayerson, Michael. 2008. Coal River. 1st ed. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, January 8.
See: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Mobilizes on Mountaintop Removal
See: Marsh Fork Elementary: Journey Up Coal River | A Community and Strip Mining
See: Mountaintop Removal (Film)
See: Mike Roselle clip 2-from the Southern Regional Jail West Virginia
See: Tree spiker : from Earth First! to lowbagging: my struggles in radical environmental action
See: Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining