Press Release

June 2, 2006

Appalshop Contacts: Dwight Swanson at 606-633-0108; Mimi Pickering at 606-633-0108 or 606-335-2610.  
OVEC Contact: Vivian Stockman at 304-522-0246. 
Cabell County Public Library Contact:  Ralph Oppenheim 304-528-5700.

OVEC Presents Appalshop Buffalo Creek Flood Documentaries
on June 20 at Cabell County Public  Library

HUNTINGTON, W.VA.—At 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 20 in the Huntington / Cabell County Public Library, Appalshop and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition will present the 1975 documentary “The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man” and the 1984 film “Buffalo Creek Revisited.”  The screenings are free and open to the public.

The library, in downtown Huntington at 455 9th Street Plaza, will set up Meeting Rooms One and Two as a theatre. OVEC will provide light refreshments.  

Both films are directed by Appalshop’s award-winning Mimi Pickering, who will be present to answer audience questions.  Over the last thirty-six years, the Whitesburg, Ky. based Appalshop has become a nationally recognized collective that produces films, music, audio recordings and radio, literature, theater, visual arts and photography. 

After the screening Pickering will facilitate a discussion on the impact of the disaster and its meaning for West Virginians today.  Jack Spadaro, staff engineer on the Governor’s 1972 Inquiry into the disaster and most recently head of MSHA’s investigation into the 2000 Martin County, KY sludge spill, and Lynda Ann Ewen, Co-Director of Marshall University’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender will join the discussion.  

“Unfortunately West Virginia coal communities are increasingly threatened with disasters like Buffalo Creek,” Pickering said. “I hope that discussing the issues raised in these films will help citizens find solutions to these community safety problems.”

The documentaries will be released on DVD for the first time in mid-June and will be available for purchase at the event, which is part of a statewide screening and discussion tour sponsored by the Southern Appalachian Labor School and made possible by a grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council.

“Several OVEC members attended the screening of these documentaries at the Man High School this February, near the anniversary of the flood,” said Vivian Stockman, OVEC’s coordinator for the Sludge Safety Project. “It was obvious people’s suffering is not yet over.  We hope that showing these films here motivate people to demand better coal sludge laws, and better enforcement of existing laws. As long as politicians kowtow to the coal industry, we are still in danger from these kinds of preventable tragedies.”

Last winter, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced his annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the prestigious National Film Registry. The list, designed to reflect the full breadth and diversity of America’s film heritage by honoring films of exceptional cultural, historical or aesthetic significance, included “The Buffalo Creek Flood: An Act of Man.”

The Library of Congress describes the Pickering’s work as a “powerful documentary” that “represents the finest in regional filmmaking, providing important understanding of the environmental and cultural history of the Appalachian region.” It poignantly portrays the impact that the February 1972 collapse of a coal-waste dam had on the West Virginia communities it devastated.  A wall of sludge, debris and water tore through the valley below, leaving in its wake 125 dead and 4,000 homeless.  The Pittston Company, owners of the dam, maintained that the disaster was “an act of God.” Interviews with survivors, representatives of union and citizens’ groups and officials of the Pittston Company are juxtaposed with actual footage of the flood and scenes of the ensuing destruction.

“Buffalo Creek Revisited” was filmed ten years after the collapse of the coal-waste dam and looks at the second disaster in which the survivors’ efforts to rebuild the communities shattered by the flood were thwarted by government insensitivity and a century-old pattern of corporate control of the Appalachian region’s land and resources. Through the statements of survivors, planners, politicians, psychologists, and community activists the film explores the psychology of a disaster, the importance of community, and the paradox of a poor people living in a rich land.

Both films are currently undergoing preservation with assistance from the Women’s Film Preservation Fund and Cineric Laboratory. The discussions will also be a chance to explore issues related to preserving West Virginia film history.

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Photos for use in news stories are available from Mimi Pickering at Appalshop, 606-633-0108 or 606-335-2610.

Links:

Participant Bios:

Mimi Pickering (Appalshop Filmmaker)

Pickering’s award-winning documentaries include “Chemical Valley” (1991, co-directed with Anne Lewis) about issues of environmental justice in the Kanawha Valley; “Dreadful Memories” (1988), an exploration of the legacy of Sarah Ogan Gunning, a powerful singer and songwriter from eastern Kentucky; and Hazel Dickens: it’s hard To Tell The Singer From The Song” (2002), a portrait of this West Virginia native and National Heritage Award winner described by the Washington Post as "a living legend of American music, a national treasure."  Pickering is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two Kentucky Arts Council Fellowships, as well as media grants from the American Film Institute, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Kentucky and West Virginia Humanities Councils.

Jack Spadaro

Jack was the Staff Engineer for the West Virginia Governor’s Commission of Inquiry into the Buffalo Creek Flood of February 1972. He assembled and evaluated data regarding the construction and sudden failure of the dam, interviewed witnesses and briefed commission members before hearings. He prepared the final report regarding the failure of the coal waste dam, and his recommendations for coal refuse and dam control regulations were enacted into West Virginia law. Jack later served as Superintendent of the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Mine Health and Safety Academy where he headed MSHA’s investigation into the 2000 Martin County, Kentucky sludge spill.

Lynda Ann Ewen (PhD)

Professor Emerita of Sociology at Marshall University, Lynda is the past Director of the Oral History of Appalachia Program at Marshall. Currently she is the Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender at Marshall and editor of the series Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia for Ohio University Press.

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