About SLUDGE
Shortly after midnight on October 11, 2000, a coal sludge impoundment in Martin County, Kentucky, broke through an underground mine below, propelling 306 million gallons of sludge down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. By morning, Wolf Creek was oozing with the black waste; on Coldwater Fork, a ten-foot wide stream became a 100-yard expanse of thick sludge. The spill polluted hundreds of miles of waterways, contaminated the water supply for over 27,000 residents, and killed all aquatic life in Coldwater Fork and Wolf Creek. The spill was 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez and one of the worst environmental disasters ever in the southeastern United States, according to the EPA.
For over four years, Appalshop filmmaker Robert Salyer has chronicled the continuing story of the Martin County disaster, the resulting federal investigation, and the looming threat of coal sludge ponds throughout the coalfield region. In the United States today, coal is the largest single source of fuel for energy production. Annually, the country mines over a billion tons of coal. Coal waste is a consequence of this insatiable consumption. The Mine Safety and Health Administration has estimated that there are over 235 sludge ponds throughout the region with the potential to break into an underground mine, as the Martin County pond did in 2000.
Sludge is a story of the residents and communities in the coalfields, but it is also a look behind the curtain: a story of the overseers and regulators responsible for health and safety and the agencies and departments that house them
Sludge reveals the hidden cost of America’s coal production and the penalty exacted upon the people of the Appalachian mountains in exchange for cheap electricity.
For over four years, Appalshop filmmaker Robert Salyer has chronicled the continuing story of the Martin County disaster, the resulting federal investigation, and the looming threat of coal sludge ponds throughout the coalfield region. In the United States today, coal is the largest single source of fuel for energy production. Annually, the country mines over a billion tons of coal. Coal waste is a consequence of this insatiable consumption. The Mine Safety and Health Administration has estimated that there are over 235 sludge ponds throughout the region with the potential to break into an underground mine, as the Martin County pond did in 2000.
Sludge is a story of the residents and communities in the coalfields, but it is also a look behind the curtain: a story of the overseers and regulators responsible for health and safety and the agencies and departments that house them
Sludge reveals the hidden cost of America’s coal production and the penalty exacted upon the people of the Appalachian mountains in exchange for cheap electricity.
Filmmaker Bio
Robert Salyer is a documentary filmmaker born and reared in the central Appalachian coalfields of southwest Virginia. Trained at Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky and a staff member since 1998, he is producer, director, and editor of Sludge , a documentary that examines a major Kentucky coal waste spill and its effects on the environment and community. He is also the editor for director Walter Brock's ITVS program Land (And How It Gets That Way) , a film that examines the issue of urban sprawl and how one rural community struggles between the forces of preservation and progress. Mr. Salyer recently completed a semester-long residency as a visiting video artist at Kentucky State University, an historically black university in Frankfort. In addition to working with media, Salyer has been closely involved with the Virginia Organizing Project, starting a local chapter in his home county and serving on the organization's governing board for five years.