''Sludge'' is a 2005 documentary film by

Appalshop Appalshop is a media, arts, and education center located in Whitesburg, Kentucky, in the heart of the southern Appalachian region of the United States. History Appalshop was founded in 1969 as the Appalachian Film Workshop, a project of the Uni ...

filmmaker Robert Salyer chronicling the

Martin County Sludge Spill The Martin County coal slurry spill was a mining accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000, when the bottom of a coal slurry impoundment owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Kentucky, broke into an abandoned underground min ...

that was an accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000, when a

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

sludge impoundment in

Martin County, Kentucky Martin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 11,287. Its county seat is Inez. The county was founded in 1870 and is named for Congressman John Preston Martin. History Martin C ...

, broke through an underground mine below, propelling 306 million gallons of sludge down two tributaries of the

Tug Fork River The Tug Fork is a tributary of the Big Sandy River, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 13, 2011 in southwestern West Virginia, southwestern Virginia, and easter ...

. The movie documents 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 consumption; the

Mine Safety and Health Administration The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) () is a small agency of the United States Department of Labor which administers the provisions of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 (Mine Act) to enforce compliance with mandatory sa ...

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.

External links

* History of Kentucky Martin County, Kentucky Documentary films about environmental issues 2005 films 2005 documentary films Documentary films about coal in the United States Documentary films about Appalachia Documentary films about disasters Documentary films about Kentucky 2000s English-language films English-language documentary films {{environment-documentary-film-stub

See also

External links