Trump show has offered plenty of distractions the reigning news right now is a profanity laced tirade ban and is now out of for all of the drama and the disappointment disappointed very disappointed theres one achievement cant be denied my administration is putting an end to the war on coal and have clean coal really clean coal with todays executive action i am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American Energy to reverse government intrusion and do kancil job killing regulations hes made good on a Campaign Promise to repeal hundreds of federal. No agency has rolled back regulations more efficiently than them vironment a Protection Agency or e. P. A. A government body created to protect and then barbara thank you thank you very much to lead trump chose a climate the nine politician from oklahoma whos backed by the fossil fuels industry its good to see some coal miners here at the e. P. A. And who soon e. P. A. Fourteen times on behalf of many of the polluting industries hes now supposed to regulate were no longer to have a regulatory assault on any given sector of our economy thats going to end by the sign in this executive order putas targeted dozens of environmental rules from the Obama Administration signature plan to cut Carbon Emissions to bans on toxic chemicals weve never seen anything like what scott through its through on under downtown in this episode of fault lines we travel downstream to communities with Cautionary Tales about what this rollback could cost and by the way regulations not only in this industry but in every industry. Were doing them by the thousands every industry. In two thousand and eight donna listen people had of the emory river near kingston tennessee to the side of the biggest industrial spill in u. S. History. It was coal ash the waste looked over when power plants burned coal to generate electricity i couldnt believe that a beautiful river like ants that was clear and open in flowing was just so the giant after. Six years later it happened again donna found herself here on the dan river in North Carolina is more than thirty five thousand metric tons of coal ash spilled from a broken pipe but meet the pond where it was stuart. He got a patent for our. Perfect the pond was owned by duke energy North Carolinas main electric power provider. As staff for the Waterkeeper Alliance a group that advocates for clean water donna went to assess the damage that stay infamous hype that spared thousands of gallons of heavy metal contaminated coal ash waste into the nan river all the way to virginia. What it looked like when i was feeling so this really thick we were a story and as it continued to go downstream the entire river turned this sick the rain and it smelled like cinder and ash it smelled like. Oh this is a whole ashtray here yeah thats terrible so we had to lean over to get that sample right out of that pipe and there was no arsenic no worse no land there was no crummy in any of the samples of three and then once you got here all of sudden you had thirty seven times more arsenic you had land you had. You know you had the suite of coal ash heavy metals coming into this room. For years Many American coal fired power plants have been dumping their ash into unlined goods covering it with water and adding their waste water to the result was a toxic mixture of high and arsenic mercury lead and other heavy metals. The dan river spilled was a reminder that the pits could break catastrophic leak and that they often leaked into groundwater. After the accident North Carolinas state assembly passed legislation requiring to to fix monitor and eventually close its coal ash basis. To comply to ca to test the water on Properties Like deborah grams which lie within three hundred metres of a pond. The result. We. Did it here the other day. Two thousand and fifteen when my husband came in the mail she pulled up and said hey ya we got some. And im sitting right here drinking my coffee and hes standing right there and he has. The waters contaminated and i when. What. He said are whale water is contaminated. And i just remember this. This year and theyre not took the paper from them and im lookin at it. Remember going right here to my thing. Looking out that window. I had no idea. Whats life without clean water like you get that letter from your State Government saying your water is contaminated. It changes everything new day it changes what you did it changes what you think about it changes people dont want to come to. They dont when they dont want anything from. Heres where it is Public Health recommends that you not use your well water not the use for drinking in cooking that say you test in two thousand and fifteen chilled diapers well water had potentially unsafe levels of a navy and an exhibition with chromium heavy metals have been linked to cancer this is the second one this is getting but here is where it says there is only and then in march two thousand and sixteen. Point two in North Carolinas health and Human Services department lowered the safety standard and said dont notices thats the ok to drink later we have withdrawn the do not drink usage recommendation because we have determine your water is safe to drink as water and most cities and towns across the country. Energy want to make any. That i get modern water able to waste when they can or take they say to give the resume and paste to my on. The cover there but. After the day in river spilled more than a decade of Work EnvironmentProtection Agency finalized a new set of rules. That complicated names but a simple goal preventing coal waste pollution. There was the coal combustion residuals world which required Energy Companies to monitor their coal ash ponds and shut down leaking pits. In the rule betsy sutherlands team wrote the steam electric power plant effluent guidelines are rule with to say hey you really need in the twenty First Century to start treating these toxic waste and not pouring them untreated and in coal ash ponds there are rule was really thing you know if you comply with us you really dont need to have the coal ash Holding Ponds anymore. So there was a senior official in the e. P. A. His office a water its been thirty years working at the agency which he retired last summer. She was so dismayed by the Trip Administrations push to roll back regulations that she went public with a scathing goodbye memo and decided to share her story i wanted to warn people that they didnt need to be vigilant and they didnt need to be aware of all theyre going to lose the next four years. Just weeks after pruitt to charge the v. A. He announced he would consider repealing the very rules sutherlands team had written the first we knew that he had decided to even reconsider the roll with when he thought his draft press release that said that he was going to grant these petitions he was going to reconsider that role because it had enormous job losses and they normally think anomic impact i dont know why he said that because at that point in april we had never briefed him once on this role and we could have. Definitely showed him and great detail that there with not going to be any big job loss or any big Economic Impact how does it feel that you put years into creating that kind of a role and then seeing it repealed so almost imperiously are quickly heartbreaking because we know that that rule was so important and for now theri to protect Public Health. B. P. A. Rules would have made life safer for communities across the United States that live near coal fired power plants and coal ash ponds. Well North Carolina has moved to make Energy Companies clean up their leaky pits theres evidence in many states of ponds contaminating nearby groundwater. The blues creek steam station lies a leaking coal ash pond which to community has plans to drain and still. Make sure this call this close is good ok were going to call last part is over here. Its behind us tree and theyve taken that out of that part of the plane in the coal ash i guess thats what theyre doing out on a positive charge right across the street but beyond that back way back there thats the power. Under a davis says the main pool spot started appearing on her body about five years ago those are kind of the newest can you detail. Why how do you get the source people havent taken a shower. Theyre all i must. Say this you see this you see this. Every two weeks andre receives bottled water from duke energy test have shown high levels of heavy metals in her groundwater recently researchers at a nearby university told her that found unsafe amounts of arsenic in her soil. When ingested arsenic has been documented to koskinen rushes and they caught before they are. What they said they said that i had the highest concentration of arsenic in my soul. Baring them. The whole area. And thats why they were calling me out why i said what i needed to he said were going to raise the the letter out but we wanted you to know. Your soil is found to exceed a. P. s regional strain levels of forty milligrams per kilogram for arsenic. When they told you arsenic what went through your mind and i just might fell apart. After i fell apart. Has to kunar she never acknowledged that they poison your water. They have to pay if they do that. No i have to document employee. Out of my pocket which i dont have that kind of mind and im a get it from somewhere i go bankrupt which im almost there when you think of all this is taken from you physically financially emotionally. How does that make you feel. Thrown away. Dont make me cry. Thrown away. Because i dont think i should have to go through this all this about myself. In September Pruden else the e. P. A. Will consider repealing the coal combustor residuals Rule Industries request. You also want to head to repeal crucial parts of the rule souther winstein rope which would have ended the disposal of toxic liquid waste in ash and ponds. I just dont know if theyre going to put anything in its place or just repeal that hasnt been decided yet are americans being put at risk by this administration absolutely i think Public Health and safety is going to suffer and i think that is is going. To be in media all the action film already taken again just at the point i left just seven months into the administration have enormous Public Health ramifications already and we have got live really got three and a half more years of repeal of the have of us. B. P. A refused our interview request. But Robert Murray the founder and c. E. O. The biggest privately owned coal company in america agreed to speak with us at my peak in two thousand and thirteen i had eighty four hundred jobs in Murray Energy corporation now im down to about six thousand jobs. All due to democrats barack obama radical environmentalists liberally latests and yes those who support windmills and solar panels house Trip Administration doing on the list hes doing very well on a donor to Trumps Campaign and inauguration murray says hes given the president a list of all the regulations he wants repealed including the steam electric effluent guidelines and the coal combustion residuals or c. C. R. Roll they c. C. R. Or they are focused on is not a major issue and what destroyed the United States coal industry making power plan this dream protection rule the subsidy for windmills and solar panels. These rules have also been brought back most americans take for granted that they have clean water to drink or swim or recreate in a clean air to breathe or safe food to eat as youre pushing the e. P. A. To roll back the protections that provide those things are you willing to trust todays Energy Companies petro Chemical CompaniesCoal Companies to protect those resources without of federal mandate to do so i dont think scott pruitt or President Trump has ever directed anyone to do that they know they they have a mandate under our law to protect the environment what we have seen though is these excesses to pay back their political friends from the democrats have been done away with theyve rolled back rules that it took like ten years ago in place they had economic studies they had scientific studies had meyer mills studies and then they rolled them back you know your lawyers thats where youre wrong they werent protecting anyone these rules that mr trump and mr perk have overturned relative the coal industry. I have no protection on the environment at all why not wait a second he wrote the diary two rules that weve talked about the flu limitation guidelines the coal combustion residuals these were prompted in part by what happened in tennessee and the dan river in North Carolina no they werent these were rules written to favor certain segments of this inside which were pumping money into the democrat party. While its hard to deny the trumpet ministrations favors to the fossil fuels industry the sweeping rollback extends to other powerful companies. And delivers the fed chairman c. E. O. Of delta Chemical Company dow chemical was among the first to feel the benefits the Regulatory Burden is for the people behind me and for the Great Companies of this country and just woke up to an impossible situation were going to sell them very quickly. There are a few places dells presence could be felt more strongly than in californias central valley. The region produces more than a quarter of the countrys food absorbing millions of kilograms of pesticides each year. Among them or purify us you know phosphate manufactured by doubt and commonly sprayed on citrus and other crops. And they know this. For twenty four years cloudy anglo has worked in the Valleys Vineyards and grow. Shes raised four children and early on she knew her son isaac was different. Than both his condo you never live on nor. So as a guest on which he cant do you know many and then program but one thing. Less quinn the many so mr levin and. When im fed amana and. Then its going to eat. At the nana and the s. D. So yeah i thought of him one day and not. Ok you have different kinds. Of cloud do you believe that isaacs attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or eighty h. T. Is linked to clarify us they live in one of the california counties where the pesticide is most used i cant. But i think i meant that. I got. It. For eight. Minutes and. In nov twenty sixth teen there was hope when the e. P. A. Published a proposal to ban clipper fos. Study after study has shown that clip air force is linked to lower i. Q. A. D. H. D. And autism in babies who are exposed to it especially during their mothers pregnancy and had been linked to respiratory problems in Young Children. In two thousand and one their sect aside have been outlawed for use in american homes. Now e. P. A. Scientists have finally determined that any amount of it was too big a risk to the safety of Young Children and were banning it for use in agriculture to. So i said do you worry about the chemicals they use run on the plants around here ever since i started getting. Sick because usually its time i go. My eyes hurt a lot and then my head hurts them or stomach and then. This will be there ever thought you was over. Do you ever wonder how life would be different for isaac were he not exposed. To this pesticide. On this. Earth they would learn this. Then the p. C. So in the middle maybe they are not among them. Then there are me for this day and. Environmental organizations that it sued the e. P. A. For years to a local peer fossil were sure that finally would when the agency published the proposal to ban it. But then in march trumps new e. P. A. Administrator reversed course the clear in the science not certain enough for a ban and delayed any decision for five more years. Paul towers works for the Pesticide Action Network so hey josh rushing faultlines when trumps e. P. A. Chief refused to ban it it was a surprise to all of us that an agency could actually nor all of that background and all of that science what does the e. P. A. s own science say about it so hes only scientists agree that corpora foss is unsafe and the mountains when they looked at the amount that ends up in water or on the outside of our fruits particularly on even on the inside of an orange so its actually migrates through the rind of an orange to the inside of it that was enough to impact a childs brain so fundamentally that couldnt be used in any amount of theres an enormous body of science on this one side of it that is is true its like privy to some other body its time for some other studies on the other side and i think the thing that that proved is privy to is a close relationship with the Chemical Industry and the message that that put put forward as one of uncertainty and you know this is the classic copout its you know play out a big tobaccos playbook any time you can lets talk it up to uncertainty researchers from the university of california berkeley have been tracking a group of mothers and kids from californias farmworker communities for almost twenty years theres one of three