Black Diamonds Documentary Video Released

A realistic style and a straightforward narrative make Black Diamonds one of the best documentary videos to come out of the mountaintop removal mining fight to date.

The documentary features discussions with many of the key people who are affected by, and fighting, mountaintop removal. It makes a key point early on — The poorest people in the richest country on earth watch millions of dollars of coal pass by their homes every day. Not only is this wealth unfairly passing them by, coalfield residents tell the camera, but the extractive process has so many side effects and external costs that they are paying for others to accumulate this wealth.

And that is just the beginning. From the origins of strip mining and the Buffalo Creek disaster of 1972, to the Mountain Justice Summer protests, Black Diamonds tells the history of what came to be called mountaintop removal.

We meet William Maxey who quit his job as chairman of the West Virginia Division of Forestry in protest over mountaintop removal. We meet attorneys like Jim Heckler.
We see Judge Charles Haden, whose 1999 decision held back mountaintop removal for years.

Most of all we meet the people who are deeply affected by mountaintop removal such as Julia Bonds. There is even an interview with a pallid and banal William Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association.

For more information on Black Diamonds, look up:
www.blackdiamondsmovie.com