248 kids still alive in Sundial, WV. Let's keep it that way.

Aside from the fact that it is nestled in the mountains, Marsh Fork Elementary School in Sundial, West Virginia is not too unlike the city of New Orleans before it was flooded.

248 kids attend school in Sundial just below a man-made impoundment holding back 2.8 billion gallons. This "lake" is not made of water, though. It is made of toxic coal sludge.

from the upcoming issue of Appalachian Voices:

--Outside Naoma (West Virginia) a man-made impoundment (not unlike the levees around New Orleans) holding back 2.8 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge looms directly above Marsh Fork Elementary School...Parents and grandparents of children attending Marsh Fork Elementary held repeated protests over the summer to call attention to this huge threat to the lives and the health of their children. The response of local government? The parents and grandparents were arrested.

--In 2000, 309 million gallons of sludge spilled from an impoundment in Martin County, Kentucky, when the bottom of the reservoir failed, releasing sludge into underground mines that then flowed into local rivers. The resulting spill was larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill (28 times larger, in fact) and has been called the worst environmental disaster in the Southeast...

tags: Hurricane Katrina, environmental education, coal, energy, West Virginia, Appalachia, New Orleans, Bush, energy policy, Massey coal, Kentucky, accountability, citizen journalism