Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • A laborer at a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222993.JPG
  • A woman truck driver at a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222994.JPG
  • Trucks hauling waste rock are monitored at a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222992.JPG
  • A woman truck driver at a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222995.TIF
  • Trucks hauling waste rock at Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222991.JPG
  • Trucks hauling waste rock at Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222955.TIF
  • Artesianal fishermen sell products like octopus, squid and cuttlefish.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1058037.JPG
  • Trucks hauling waste rock at Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
    Gold_20060413_00538.tif
  • Trucks hauling waste rock at Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222957.TIF
  • Trucks hauling waste rock at Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222956.TIF
  • Hanging cages hold reef fish before transport to China and Hong Kong.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1058005.JPG
  • Hanging cages hold reef fish before transport to China and Hong Kong.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1058002.JPG
  • Hanging cages hold reef fish to be transported to China and Hong Kong.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1057948.JPG
  • Salted and dried jellyfish are considered a delicacy by the Chinese.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1058003.JPG
  • Timber is cut into cedar shakes and lumber for building and construction creating jobs for locals at a small sawmill operation on Prince of Wales Island.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075074.jpg
  • Gold from a mine in Ghana is packed and sorted for transport.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1223010.TIF
  • Gold from a mine in Ghana is packed and sorted for transport.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1223009.TIF
  • Gold from a mine in Ghana is packed and sorted for transport.
    GOLDGHANA_20060925_01046.tif
  • Gold from a mine in Ghana is packed and sorted for transport.
    GOLDGHANA_20060925_00922.tif
  • Illegal miners and their shaft on Ashanti Gold land.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1223013.JPG
  • Gold from a mine in Ghana is packed and sorted for transport.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1198349.JPG
  • Explosives set in pit at mile-wide Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
    GOLDGHANA_20060925_00813.tif
  • Gold camp at mile-wide Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
    GOLDGHANA_20060925_00332.tif
  • Gold from a mine in Ghana is packed and sorted for transport.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1222965.JPG
  • Mile-wide Batu Hijau, a copper and gold mine.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1198339.TIF
  • Hanging cages hold reef fish before transport to China and Hong Kong.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1057868.JPG
  • The Aberdeen Wholesale Fish Market and restaurant area.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1057846.JPG
  • Sengalese fishermen entering and exiting the port at Dakar.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1053900.JPG
  • Rocks are smashed and washed by hand in search of gold flecks.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7209_976460.TIF
  • Miners sweep dirt and rock from a coal seam at a small mining operation.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023641.jpg
  • Hanging cages hold reef fish before transport to China and Hong Kong.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1058004.JPG
  • The Miller and Caudill family prepare string beans from the summer garden for canning.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023691.jpg
  • A coal mine above Mc Roberts causes flooding and water problems for the residents that live in the shadow of this valley fill from a mountaintop removal mine.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023677.jpg
  • Homes damaged and knocked down by surface mining blasting.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7339_1223017.TIF
  • Jars of green beans and tomatoes from the Caudill-Miller family garden that will be consumed throughout the year. Canning in mason jars is an annual ritual.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023674.jpg
  • Factories, power plants, and rail yards crowd along the banks of the Hackensack River in the Meadowlands. the World Trade Center is visible in the far right b ackground.
    MELISSA FARLOW_06460_668276.jpg
  • Stacked and bundled, red cedar shakes contribute to the forest industry with manufactured wood products milled to cover roofs and walls of buildings.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075075.jpg
  • A woman worker sorts lumber after logs are milled. Few industrial pulp mills remain open since the commercial timber industry fell on hard times. But small family operations like this one continue milling wood for products and local use rather than export.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075053.jpg
  • Areas of Borneo have been turned into a moonscape by illegal gold miners in Central Kalimantan. Indonesian farmers turn their hoes to mining, illegally digging for gold on a torn up riverbank in Borneo. For the chance to make five dollars a day, thousands have left their fields to join Indonesia’s gold rush. East Java has high unemployment and there are many migrant workers on Kalimantan (Borneo) that came from Java initially to do artisanal timber work. The government stomped out the little timber guys in favor of two big companies so they could control (read “profit from”) the industry. So all the artisanal timber workers switched to gold. Miners test in the 1000-ppm plus range for mercury (normal is 170 to 300). Eastern Java is severely overcrowded and the government has an official transmigration program over to Kalimantan. In Eastern Java they can earn about 100RP a day hoeing the fields. Here they can earn upwards of 30,000-60,000RP ($3-$6) a day. So it is worth it to camp in this area, having only the water (full of mercury) from the amalgam ponds to bathe and drink.
    Gold_20060420_01098.tif
  • Sawdust covers a worker’s boots at a salvage mill on Goose Creek on Prince of Wales Island. Although the timber industry has declined in southeast Alaska, the family operation makes red cedar shakes and cuts boards from salvage after a company is done clear cutting trees.<br />
The small company’s work is considered “value–added,” and is acknowledged as the best way to get the most dollars out of each board foot of timber harvested and processed locally.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075076.TIF
  • Aerial view of timber that is loaded for export onto a ship on South Prince of Wales. The forest industry depends on overseas sales and load floating logs from a nearby mill in a protected bay.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075089.TIF
  • Timber is loaded for export onto a ship in protected waters on South Prince of Wales island. The forest industry depends on overseas sales of wood that is shipped mostly to Asia.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075022.jpg
  • Tags identifying miners hang on a numbered board in a display of old equipment at the AJ Gastineau Mill gold mine. Gold was discovered in Juneau at what is now known as Gold Creek, in 1880 and AJ was constructed in 1913 and shut down in 1921. Over the years, the mine recovered 500,00 ounces of gold from 12 million tons of ore.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075109.jpg
  • Shark fins are sorted at a marine products export company.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7393_1057841.JPG
  • Workers ride an elevator up as they come off shift working to seal off a mercury mine. It is a 500 year old problem that has polluted underground water in Idrija and surrounding areas although closed in 1995. It was the second largest in the world. Mercury can be used to extract silver and gold, therefore the silver and gold-rush motivated mercury mining. The mining industry brought science, technological advancements, and industry to this mountainous region but it also created considerable medical problems and health hazard due to its toxicity.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_985667-2.TIF
  • A farmer herds his cows off the steep hillside back to return to the barn for a morning milking. Some alpine farms attract young people who desire a simple and rustic lifestyle.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024122.jpg
  • Cody, a timber faller, works alone in the woods at Winter Harbor on Prince of Wales Island. It’s dangerous work, and fallers listen for others’ saws between cuts to make sure a buddy isn't injured. Following his father’s example, Cody wanted to be a timber faller since he was a kid. He got his first chain saw when he was nine and has been working since he turned seventeen.<br />
  He leaves home at 5 a.m. driving an hour to the work site. Carrying a heavy chain saw, he walks with the grace of a ballet dancer on a maze of fallen trees. His shoes, called corks that cost as much as $750, have metal-spiked soles so he is stable on fallen trees.<br />
  Loggers and fishermen rank in the top two spots for most dangerous jobs. Both are common lines of work for people in the Alaskan outdoors. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking fatal occupational injuries in 1980, there were 4,547 fatal work injuries in 2010, and fatality rates of some occupations remain alarmingly high.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075117.TIF
  • Shredded remains of trees are the spoils left after a forest is clear cut on Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest. At nearly 17 million acres, the Tongass rainforest is composed of considerable stands of old-growth forest, with some trees more than 800 years old.<br />
Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass is composed of high-volume old growth.<br />
The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075083.jpg
  • A timber faller works alone with a chain saw in the forest cutting trees one by one at Winter Harbor on Prince of Wales Island. It is dangerous work.<br />
 The forests in the Tongass can take a 1000 years for spruce, hemlock and Sitka cedar to grow and tower over a lush forest floor in Alaska's Southeast.<br />
Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass is composed of high-volume old growth. The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075148.jpg
  • A timber faller works alone in the woods at Winter Harbor on Prince of Wales Island. He turns off his chain saw occasionally to listen for others working on nearby hillsides. It is a way the men look out for each other's safety.<br />
Loggers and fishermen rank in the top two spots for most dangerous jobs. Both are common lines of work for people in the Alaskan outdoors. Since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking fatal occupational injuries in 1980, there were 4,547 fatal work injuries in 2010, and fatality rates of some occupations remain alarmingly high.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075146.TIF
  • Shredded remains of trees on the edge of a forest that was clear cut on Prince of Wales Island in the Tongass National Forest. At nearly 17 million acres, the Tongass rainforest is composed of considerable stands of old-growth forest, with some trees standing more than 800 years old. <br />
Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass is composed of high-volume old growth.<br />
The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075108.jpg
  • Sugar workers harvest cane in the heat after fields are burned.<br />
Workers are covered with black char when they cut sugar canes with a machete. The sharp leaves destroy workers and tools, so they are burned before the raw sugar is harvested. The stalks are then loaded on a truck, taken to a mill to be processed into white and brown sugar. <br />
The Pomalca sugar cane coop located at Campo Rosaliais, Peru.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187070.jpg
  • A logging truck hauls timber from the Tongass National Forest to a sawmill where it will be processed and loaded on ships for export.<br />
Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass National Forest is composed of high-volume old growth.  The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075024.jpg
  • Sugar workers are covered with black char as they harvest cane in the hot sun after fields are burned. Canes are burned before they are cut because leaves from the plant are so sharp they dull blades of their machetes. The stalks are then loaded on a truck, taken to a mill to be processed into white and brown sugar. <br />
The Pomalca sugar cane coop located at Campo Rosaliais, Peru.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187071.jpg
  • A timber faller works alone in the woods at Winter Harbor. It is dangerous work and cuts are calculated so a tree will fall cleanly to prevent injuries.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075147.jpg
  • Logging roads zig zag through a recent clear cut forest creating a barren slope on Admiralty Island. Less than 5 percent of the entire Tongass National Forest is composed of high-volume old growth. The biggest and best trees, the biological heart of the rainforest, has been cut—much of it for pulp.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075047.jpg
  • Sugar workers chew cane during a break from harvesting charred cane in the hot sun. Canes are burned before they are cut because leaves from the plant are so sharp they dull blades of their machetes. The stalks are then loaded on a truck, taken to a mill to be processed into white and brown sugar. <br />
The Pomalca sugar cane coop is located at Campo Rosaliais, Peru.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187072.jpg
  • Aerial view of snow covered mountain top removal mining site. After blasting the top of a mountain, trucks remove debris dumping dirt and rock into valleys and streams destroying watersheds. Over 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried and 300,000 acres of diverse temperate hardwood forests obliterated with valley hills like the white V in the foreground. Pollution from toxic chemicals fill sludge ponds and in flooding, contaminate drinking water. A moonscape of unusable land is left.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996789.jpg
  • More than 5,000 miles of roads are carved into the remote landscape to clear-cut large swatches of forests on Chichagof Island. An aerial picture after a winter snow reveals the patchwork on lower reaches of the mountains where logging traditionally occurs. <br />
Taxpayer money has subsidized the timber industry since 1980. Tongass National Forest timber management has cost U.S. taxpayers roughly one billion dollars, making it the largest money loser in the entire national forest system.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1073536.TIF
  • Aerial view of a drag line that scrapes through rock after a explosives blast away the top of mountains. A fresh snow contrasts the blackened coal that is revealed. Mountaintop removal mining devastates the landscape, turning areas that should be lush with forests and wildlife into barren moonscapes.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023728.jpg
  • A conservation group hikes through wilderness and old growth crossing creeks and rough terrain in Tongass National Forest.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1075115.TIF
  • A terraced V-shaped valley fill sits at the edge of a reclaimed West Virginia mining site. Entire mountains are blasted away in mountaintop removal mining in order to obtain a small seam of coal. Unwanted rock is pushed into valleys and streams destroying natural watersheds and the length of the Ohio River has been filled in. The result is a threat to clean water and the biodiversity of the ecosystem.<br />
<br />
The Central Appalachian Plateau was created 4 million years ago, and one of its richest assets is wilderness containing some of the world’s oldest and biologically richest temperate zone hardwood forest. A flattened moonscape on top is mostly unusable.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996274.jpg
  • Aerial view of Twisted Gun Golf Club,an 18-hole regulation length golf course in Wharncliffe, West Virginia. The golf course is a reclaimed mountaintop removal site, and was recognized by golfonline.com in 2007 as number 17 on the “Top Fifty under Fifty” ranking of top 50 golf courses where the public can play for under fifty dollars. There are very few uses for the moonscape of rock and rubble but this one seems successful. Twisted Gun in Mingo County near Gilbert, has been called the “jewel of the coal fields.” Mining continues in distance.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996253.jpg
  • A ghost town east of Iqueque has remnants of the nitrate heyday when saltpeter was mined in the late 19th and early 20th century. Now deserted, Humberstone, was once a model company mining town offered tennis and basketball courts, a swimming pool and theater. The remains are preserved in the dry Atacama desert of Chile.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187586.jpg
  • Shredded tree trunks stand on the edge of a clear cut forest near Thorne Bay on Prince of Wales Island. This is the waste that is left behind that small mills sort through and find usable lumber. As one mill owner said of this opportunity, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7258_1073539.TIF
  • A large industrial mining truck carries a load of coal from Black Thunder, the largest surface mine in the U.S. Located in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, the mine extracts coal that is transported by rail to power plants in the East.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705780.jpg
  • Like a cancerous mutation of strip mining, coal mining involves entire mountaintops that are blasted away to obtain a small seam of coal. Unwanted rock is pushed into valleys and streams, destroying natural watersheds, leaving no vegetation, and turning the terrain into unusable land.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023738.jpg
  • Aerial view of a golf course on old coal mine site after it was reclaimed as mining in the distance continues.<br />
Twisted Gun Golf Club is an 18-hole regulation length golf course in Wharncliffe, West Virginia. The golf course is a reclaimed mountaintop removal site, and was recognized by golfonline.com in 2007 as number 17 on the “Top Fifty under Fifty” ranking of top 50 golf courses where the public can play for under fifty dollars. Twisted Gun in Mingo County near Gilbert, has been called the “jewel of the coal fields.”
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023735.jpg
  • Aerial view of Hobet 21 mountain top removal coal mining site looms over one of the few remaining houses in Mud, W.V. Once this was a quiet rural community, but mining companies can legally come within 100 feet of a family cemetery and 300 feet from a home and they run 24 hours a day and seven days a week. <br />
Hobet 21 once produced about 5.2 million tons of coal, making it among the largest surface mines in the state. The Lincoln County mine expanded to fill in Connelly Branch creek, and after the company was bankrupt in 2015, the site was passed on to another firm who continued mining.<br />
The town of Mud hasn’t been much of a community in the couple of decades since the post office closed, but in 1998 around 60 residents remained. They had two churches and a ball field. In early 1997, Big John, the mine’s 20-story dragline, moved above Mud and more houses, near this one, were bought and destroyed.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023701.jpg
  • Aerial view shows snow that accentuates the contours of a flattened, freshly cut mountaintop removal site in Cabin Creek, West Virginia. Mountaintop removal is a mining practice where the tops of mountains are blasted away to expose the seams of coal underneath.<br />
As much as 500 feet or more of a mountain summit may be leveled. The earth and rock from the mountaintop is then dumped into the neighboring valleys.<br />
Analysis from a study that Appalachian Voices commissioned along with Natural Resources Defense Council  shows that 1.2 million acres have been mined for coal. “Over 500 mountains have been leveled, and nearly 2,000 miles of precious Appalachian headwater streams have been buried and polluted by mountaintop removal.”
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023729-2.JPG
  • Snow accents the contours of a fresh valley fill at a coal mine site. Tops of mountains are blasted away and flattened to reveal a small seam of coal, and the rock and debris is dumped into V-shaped valleys filling in stream beds.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023727.jpg
  • Aerial view shows snow that accentuates the contours of a flattened, freshly cut mountaintop removal site in Cabin Creek, West Virginia. Mountaintop removal is a mining practice where the tops of mountains are blasted away to expose the seams of coal underneath.<br />
As much as 500 feet or more of a mountain summit may be leveled. The earth and rock from the mountaintop is then dumped into the neighboring valleys.<br />
Analysis from a study that Appalachian Voices commissioned along with Natural Resources Defense Council  shows that 1.2 million acres have been mined for coal. “Over 500 mountains have been leveled, and nearly 2,000 miles of precious Appalachian headwater streams have been buried and polluted by mountaintop removal.”
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023729.jpg
  • Aerial view of Hobet 21, a large mountaintop removal mine site was among the largest coal surface mines in West Virginia. The Lincoln County mine ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week expanding over hills and valleys, filling in Connelly Branch creek. At its peak in 2002, the mine produced 5 million pounds of coal in one year. After the company was bankrupt in 2015, the site was passed on to a conservation firm who continued mining.<br />
A lone house sits beside Mud River in the shadow of the mine's encroaching path. The town of Mud hasn’t been much of a community in the couple of decades since the post office closed, and in 1998 around 60 residents remained. They had two churches and a ball field. In early 1997, Big John, the mine’s 20-story dragline, moved above Mud and more houses, near this one, were bought and destroyed.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996269.jpg
  • Bulldozers fill trucks with excess rock at a small mountaintop removal site in Man, West Virginia, where a small crew is mining coal in a site in Logan County that was left by a large coal company as rubble. Mine operator Gordon Justice said, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."<br />
<br />
Large mining operations are only visible from the air, although coal and debris are removed using enormous earth-moving machines known as draglines that stand 22 stories tall and can hold 24 compact cars in its bucket. The machines can cost up to $100 million, but are favored by coal companies because they can do the work of hundreds of employees. A small operation like this one can keep 17 employees working for five years and making good wages.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996257.jpg
  • Aerial view shows snow that accentuates the contours of a flattened, freshly cut mountaintop removal site in Cabin Creek, West Virginia. Mountaintop removal is a mining practice where the tops of mountains are blasted away to expose the seams of coal underneath.<br />
As much as 500 feet or more of a mountain summit may be leveled. The earth and rock from the mountaintop is then dumped into the neighboring valleys.<br />
Analysis from a study that Appalachian Voices commissioned along with Natural Resources Defense Council  shows that 1.2 million acres have been mined for coal. “Over 500 mountains have been leveled, and nearly 2,000 miles of precious Appalachian headwater streams have been buried and polluted by mountaintop removal.”
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023729-1.JPG
  • Hobet 21 mountain top removal coal mine grows larger and approaches a family home. Mines run 24 hours a day, seven days a week creating coal dust impossible to keep out of houses.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023747.jpg
  • Aerial view of mountain top removal coal mining site and V-shaped valley fills that create a moonscape of unusable land. Roughly 1.2 million acres, including 500 mountains, have been flattened by mountaintop removal coal mining in the central Appalachian region, and only a fraction of that land has been reclaimed for so-called beneficial economic use.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023699.jpg
  • Sediment pond at the bottom of a valley fill that overflowed after a heavy rain at a  mountaintop removal mining site. Over 1000 miles of stream beds have been filled in with rock and debris where water flowed freely into rivers. Flooding occurs where it has not in the past, and sediment fills sources of drinking water.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023656.jpg
  • Activist Larry Gibson lead two friends to a knoll in the family cemetery on Kayford Mountain to view a sprawling  mountaintop removal mine. Like a cancerous mutation of strip mining, entire mountaintops are blasted away to obtain a small seam of coal. Unwanted rock is pushed into valleys and streams, destroying natural watersheds, leaving no vegetation, and turning the terrain into unusable land.<br />
More than 300 of Gibson’s relatives are buried in the cemetery and his family has lived on Kayford since the late 1700’s.<br />
<br />
Since 1986, there has been a slow motion, continuous destruction of the mountain—24 hours a day, seven days a week. Gibson occupied the highest point of land around, surrounded by a 12,000-acre level plot of land that was previously a mountain range.<br />
Over the years, Gibson was intimidated, harassed, and threatened by mining company employees for holding out. He remained outspoken against mountaintop removal.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_996225.jpg
  • Miners traveled underground in Idrija, Slovenia for 500 years to mine mercury.  Now with little need for the metal, the mine closed leaving an environmental nightmare. A small crew works to fill in the tunnels to keep heavy metals run off from polluting groundwater. Men take showers after their shift and hang their clothes on hooks.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_985667.TIF
  • Coal dust flies up as a bulldozer scoops up coal and miners shovel by hand at a mine in West Virginia. The Gordon Justice & Mac Hauling coal mine is small compared to massive mountaintop removal mining operations.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023664.jpg
  • Rock is dumped down a ridge into a valley at a mountain top coal mining site. Explosives are used to blow up the top of a mountain, and debris is hauled away in order to obtain a small seam of coal. 1000 miles of Appalachian stream beds have been filled in.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023666.jpg
  • A woman walks by homes and up the road in a holler that is at the base of a mountain mine site.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023661.jpg
  • Mother teaches her daughter to cook traditional foods in their family's restaurant in the small Ladin village of LaVal in the Dolomites.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7139_1024088.jpg
  • Streams are polluted with coal sludge from a mining accident that occurred when the bottom of a coal slurry impoundment in Martin County, Kentucky broke into an abandoned underground mine in October 2000. An estimated 306 million gallons of oozing black waste containing arsenic and mercury killed everything in a creek and measured five feet deep covering nearby yards and surrounding some homes. Drinking water was contaminated for 27,000 residents as tributaries carried it to the Big Sandy and Ohio Rivers. It is considered one of the worst environmental disasters in the southeastern United States and although largely cleaned up, water quality issues exist and residents still find sludge and slurry in surface water.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023642.jpg
  • Hydroseed grass is sprayed on steep contours of a reclaimed mountaintop removal mine site in an effort to control erosion. Reclamation requires mining companies to return the land to it's original contours and plant but little grows on these rocky soils and the operation is often repeated.  Spray-on grass replaces more than 60 tree species that ruled some of the world’s most diverse temperate forests.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023732.jpg
  • A large extended family cans apples from their garden. everyone has a different chore from washing the fruit, peeling and cutting it to put into jars. After a hot water bath, the jars are divided up to store for the winter.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023688.jpg
  • A 2.8 billion gallon sludge pond of toxic chemicals & heavy metals sits above a community in West Virginia. Coal slurry contains elevated levels of chlorides, sulfates, arsenic, lead, mercury, and selenium. Coal companies dispose of coal cleaning process creating a slurry in massive impoundments which are hundreds of feet deep and have failed or overflowed. Coal slurry impoundments represent a major threat to public health andaquatic organisms due to potential contamination of groundwater and streams.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023726.jpg
  • After coal is extracted at a mountaintop removal mine site, a land reclamation project begins by spraying hydroseed on steep rocky slopes where little can grow. Mines are legally required to restore the land to its “approximate original contour.”<br />
Roughly 1.2 million acres, including 500 mountains, have been flattened by mountaintop removal coal mining in the central Appalachian region, and only a fraction of that land has been reclaimed for so-called beneficial economic uses, according to research by environmental groups.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023668.jpg
  • Below a mountaintop removal mine site, a stream filled with sediment and coal silt washed into a backyard swimming pool making it unusable.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023659.jpg
  • Men walk near a coal slurry pond where cattle died after drinking water. Heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead contaminate water and is a threat to human health and livestock.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023653.jpg
  • Slurry pond filled with toxic brew of heavy metals from coal washing. Dams hold back thick sludge with heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury, and lead that routinely overflow into watersheds, contaminate drinking water, and drive toxic sludge into residents’ backyards.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023651.jpg
  • Clear cut forest in preparation for mountain top removal coal mining. In the background is a reclaimed mine site and rock from an active mine.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6773_1023711.jpg
  • The Trans-Alaska Pipeline runs through the Alaskan wilderness connecting the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska, U.S., with the harbor at Valdez, 800 miles to the south. Half of the pipeline is elevated to prevent the heated oil in it from thawing the permafrost and to allow wildlife to pass more easily under it. The pipeline is also cooled by refrigerant coils that keep them from transmitting heat into the thaw-sensitive permafrost. The pipeline pumps 47,000 gallons of oil a month.
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  • Views along the Dalton highway reveal the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS). The oil transportation system spanning 800 miles across Alaska lies partly in the foothills of the Brooks Range. It includes the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, running through Alaska's wilderness to the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is elevated and cooled by refrigeration coils to keep the warmed oil from melting the permafrost. Completed in 1977, it is one of the world's largest pipeline systems.
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  • Views along the Dalton highway reveal the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), an oil transportation system spanning Alaska that includes the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, running through Alaska's wilderness to the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is elevated and cooled by refrigeration coils to keep the warmed oil from melting the permafrost. It is one of the world's largest pipeline systems.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705684.jpg
  • A workman on a flatbed truck unloads a large storage tank at a gas drilling site. The petroleum industry has been exploring for oil and gas in Wyoming for over 135 years. In 1884 the first oil well was drilled southeast of Lander.
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  • Taxi ride in Norilsk Siberia on our way to the Putorana Plateau with the Russian Geographic Society. The smokestacks are from Norilsk Nickel that produces 8 percent of all the pollution in Russia. The trees south of this plant are barren and dead.
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  • A bulldozer works in a slurry of mud pushing rock that is washed at a gold mine near Coldfoot, Alaska. Gold was discovered in 1899 and prosoectors abandoned it five years later. The area was used as a service stop for trucks for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline beside the "haul road" or Dalton Highway to Prudhoe Bay in the North Slope.
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  • Maintenance to a truck that hauls hundred of tons of waste rock.
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