I'm excited to announce the A Thousand Little Cuts Online Print Auction fundraiser!

The print auction features signed prints from six Pulitzer Prize winners, five National Geographic photographers, six Photographers of the Year (POYi and NPPA), two Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award winners, one Guggenheim Fellow, and many legends of contemporary documentary photography. A few of the photographers you'll find include: Ed Kashi, David LaBelle, Carolyn Cole, Stephanie Sinclair, Liz O. Baylen, Bob Sacha, Matt Eich, Scott Strazzante, and many more.

Proceeds will be used to complete the film A Thousand Little Cuts, a six-year documentary project exploring the grassroots movement to stop the highly-destructive mining process, mountaintop removal. Our main character, Lorelei Scarbro, a tenacious grandmother of two, fights for green jobs and renewable energy projects in her community; but with a brother working on a mountaintop removal mine and a son-in-law working for Massey Energy, the risks are grave. In a place where blood and coal tie families together, Lorelei’s campaign to save a mountain could destroy the very thing she’s fighting for: her family.

We need $30,000 to complete post-production on the film, and this print auction is our light at the end of the tunnel. Please help complete the film and become a part of our team by buying a print, blogging about the auction and sharing the auction through your social media networks.

Thank you for the support.

Chad A. Stevens
Director, A Thousand Little Cuts

Photography by Chad A. Stevens

An excerpt from Jeff Biggers' article, She Has Been to the Mountaintop--and We Must Fight Harder to Save It:

She was a tireless, funny, and inspiring orator, and a savvy and brilliant community organizer. She was fearless in the face of threats. As the godmother of the anti-mountaintop removal movement, she gave birth to a new generation of clean energy and human rights activists across the nation. In a year of mining disasters and climate change set backs, she challenged activists to redouble their efforts.

As one of the great visionaries to emerge out of the coalfields, Julia "Judy" Bonds reminded the nation that her beloved Appalachians had been to the mountaintop--and in her passing last night, thousands of anti-mountaintop removal mining and New Power activists from around the country are reminding the Obama administration and the country's environmental justice movement of Bonds' powerful legacy and parting words to "don't let up, fight harder and finish off" the outlaw ranks of Big Coal and end the egregious crime of mountaintop removal.

Photography by Shaena Mallett.

They say the only thing that's permanent is change. And that's what we've been living through with the film project over the last six months. And change is good.

We're starting 2011 with a focused direction, a keener sense of the story and a plan of action for completing a rough cut of the film this summer. Other exciting changes are in the works too. More on that soon.

But wanted to leave everyone with some holiday warmth. On Dec. 18, Lorelei and other members of the Raleigh-Boone County Community Center served up a free holiday dinner for everyone. It was the holiday spirit at its best, and we left inspired, full-bellied and excited about the future of the film.

Thank you all for your support. You'll be hearing more soon.

Chad
Director, A Thousand Little Cuts

A Battle in West Virginia Mining Country Pits Coal Against Wind published on August 15, 2010.

An excerpt from Tom Zeller Jr.'s article, A Battle in West Virginia Mining Country Pits Coal Against Wind:

Their goal is to save the mountain, and they intend to do so with a wind farm. At least one study has shown that a wind project could be a feasible alternative to coal mining here, although the coal industry’s control over the land and the uncertain and often tenuous financial prospects of wind generation appear to make it unlikely to be pursued. That, residents say, would be a mistake.

“If we don’t stop this,” Ms. Scarbro says, adjusting the flowers on her husband’s grave, “one day we’ll be standing on a big pile of rock and debris, and we’ll be asking, ‘What do we do now?’ ”

For many renewable-energy advocates outside the region, the struggle at Coal River Mountain has become emblematic of an effort across the country to find alternatives to fossil fuels.

The EPA has said mountaintop removal mines have a dangerous impact on water quality. (Sierra Club)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday approved a permit for Coal Mac's Pine Creek No.1 Surface Mine in Logan County, W.Va. The Corps said the mine will impact 14,530 feet of stream.

The permit for Pine Creek has been a point of contention for some environmentalists who believe it to be inconsistent with new Clean Water Act rules announced by the Environmental Protection Agency in April. In June, the EPA recommended the Corps approve the permit despite their new rules.

In an announcement Tuesday, the EPA said the approved permit was changed to meet their new guidelines.

Consistent with the Clean Water Act and the recent EPA guidance on mountain top mining, the Agency’s consultation with the Company and the Corps led to significant changes to the permit that will reduce potential adverse impacts to water quality and avoid significant degradation of the aquatic ecosystems in the Pine Creek watershed. The key changes include reductions to stream impacts, protection of water quality through a strict conductivity level, enhanced mitigation and restoration, and reduction of cumulative impacts.

Members of the environmental group Rainforest Action Network protest during Blankenship's speech at the National Press Club. (Mannie Garcia / RAN)

In a scathing column Sunday, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank ripped Massey Energy's CEO Don Blankenship over blatantly self-serving comments made at the National Press Club last week.

Milbank writes:

If Don Blankenship had any sense of shame, he'd crawl into a mine and hide.

As CEO of Massey Energy, he has presided over a coal company that had thousands of violations in recent years, leading up to the April explosion that killed 29 of his miners. The company now faces a federal criminal investigation into what the government has called negligent and reckless practices.

But Blankenship must have no sense of shame, because he visited the National Press Club last week to complain about "knee-jerk political reactions" to mine deaths and to demand that the Obama administration lighten regulations on his dirty and dangerous company. "We need to let businesses function as businesses," an indignant Blankenship proclaimed. "Corporate business is what built America, in my opinion, and we need to let it thrive by, in a sense, leaving it alone."

• Read Milbanks's full column: Massey Energy's Blankenship: No shame, but plenty of blame
• Watch video of Blankenship's speech: Video: Blankenship Speaks to National Press Club
• Read Who's Minding the Mines? A Look at Massey Energy's Don Blankenship, by A Thousand Little Cuts' Robert Browman

The Discovery Network's 24-hour eco-lifestyle television show Planet Green is asking its website readers to support the The Coal War.

Planet Green's Rachel Cernansky writes:

'The Coal War' Shows Alternatives to Mountaintop Removal - But Needs Help on Kickstarter

We've already seen some great projects started with the help of Kickstarter, and we are already aware of some of the tremendous impact that coal has on the environment—at every stage of production from mining to the coal ash waste produced when coal is burned for energy.

Well, there's a team raising funds on Kickstarter to complete its documentary, The Coal War, that will illustrate the devastation that mountaintop removal coal mining has brought to Appalachia and what woman is doing to fight it.

It's an important film on an important topic, and the country will be better off if it gets made.

Read the full story on Planet Green.

Henry David Thoreau

by Robert Browman
A Thousand Little Cuts

Monday was birthday of the man who wrote, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." That’s noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau.

During his life, Thoreau wrote more than 20 books on a variety of topics, but he is best known for Walden, which he published in 1854. The book chronicles the two years Thoreau spent at his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson’s cabin near Walden Pond near Concord, Mass.

Many see his experiment at Walden Pond as a radical rejection of society in favor of a natural, wilderness life. In reality, Thoreau’s beliefs were more practical and moderate than extreme. The cabin at Walden wasn’t located deep in the wilderness. It was just on the edge of his hometown, not far from his family.

He didn’t entirely reject human society, nor did he completely embrace the wild. He condemned mankind's destruction of nature, and he sought to find what he felt was a proper balance between the natural world and the needs of man.

The Daily Yonder -- a daily source of news, commentary, research, and features about issues facing rural communities -- is currently leading their site with a story by A Thousand Little Cuts team members.

Written by Lead Writer Robert Browman and including images by Director Chad A. Stevens, the story is about the sense of betrayal felt by activists after the EPA seemingly ignored their own guidance and recommended approval of a new mountaintop removal mine permit in West Virginia.

Read the full story by clicking the headline below:

Mountaineers Say EPA Has Backtracked

In April, a turn in the Environmental Protection Agency bouyed Lorelei Scarbro with hope. After many trips to the nation's capitol to oppose mountaintop removal mining, the 54 year old grandmother and coal miner's widow thought the EPA was taking its first steps to abolish the radical coal extraction process that threatens her West Virginia home.

But two weeks ago, the EPA seemingly reversed course. It recommended approval of a major mountaintop removal mine in nearby Logan County, WV, an operation that would level 760 mountain acres, fill three valleys, and destroy more than two miles of streams.

Read the full story on The Daily Yonder.

Activists with Rainforest Action Network protest at EPA headquarters. (RAN)

by Robert Browman
http://thecoalwar.com

Five protesters with the environmental group Rainforest Action Network are currently occupying the lobby of the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., in protest of what they say is a betrayal of a promise made by the agency earlier this year.

On April 1, 2010, the EPA publicly announced stricter Clean Water Act rules intended to drastically limit valley fills, a process by which coal companies dispose of toxic waste from mountaintop removal mines by dumping it into streams and valleys.

Less than two months later, the EPA shocked mountaintop removal opponents by recommending approval of a permit for the Pine Creek Surface Mine in Logan County, W.V. The mine will level 760 acres of forest, fill three valleys and destroy more than two miles of streams.