Mar 11 2008
Northeast Ohio filmmaker Valda Lewis set-out to reveal a new layer in the story of the East Ohio River towns of New Straitsville and Shawnee, cities at the heart of her film Devil's Oven: The Fire in the Heart of the Little Cities of Black Diamonds.From surviving environmental decimation to thoughtful, cost-effective acts of renewal, the residents' determination inspired Lewis. Her film is being screened at the 2008 Cleveland International Film Festival. I spoke with at her over the weekend.
Having met with the locals and spent some time there, what most impressed you about the people and the area?
I think that they are determined to survive. Of course, the population has dwindled and aged but there's so much history there. The historical preservation alone is one aspect and then the environmental damage done, because there were no rules. So the idea was for industry to get in, take as much coal as they could, and make money. They didn't think about what they were digging up; there are big heaps of just junk everywhere. The slogan for Monday Creek is 'we all live downstream.' The water that goes into the mines comes out with acid mine drainage, and eventually ends-up in the Ohio River. if you live downstream from that area you are getting all that stuff.
One aspect I show is the local, determined, grassroots effort to tackle some of these problems. It would probably cost approximately 120 to 200 million dollars to [formally] clean up the area, and they pool whatever money they get to come-up with maybe two million dollars a year to work on this. What they do with that money is absolutely incredible. How they make it stretch. They are trying to find ways to clean it up. One of the big projects was to install a doser. Its filled with powder, limestone, and then they channel the stream and as it filters through it fills up these buckets. The buckets tip to meter-out a dose of this material and that gets tipped into river. It helps to balance out acid with alkaline. And that is run by water power. They say the only fossil fuel used is when the truck goes to refill the silo with powder. So it runs all year by itself.
The other thing, the waste material from the mines, which was just dumped, big mountains of the stuff? When it rains the water picks up the acid mine drain from that. So they cap it with this solution they get from the power plant. This sets up as an impermeable layer. So they cover the gob pile to stop water getting to it. Then they put a layer of topsoil and then plant that over with grass. That transform it to look beautiful again. Because water can't get into the gob pile it can't contaminate and seep beyond the topsoil. That to me is really innovative.
What do you think made the residents stay on in the area after the mining stopped?
The real story is where the population came from in droves, and what the industry did, basically to abandon them, the outside investors that just pulled out. You end up with a population that bought homes, maybe paid them off, but nothing else going on for them. I got wonderful interviews with people about how they managed when the Depression came, how they managed when the fires began burning. Of course, cars were a new thing and tourism. So they started doing tours of the area to show what had happened. They were frying eggs on rock, pulling up water to make coffee, because it was so hot. They learned to make money like that. They were famous for moonshine during Prohibition. It wasn't just a handful of people doing that; just about everyone in the village [was]. As locals say, some were better at it than others.
How did you discover the area and the story of the burning mine?
I read a story in The Plain Dealer shortly after I arrived here in 2002. I remember reading an article about the fire and I was just fascinated! I wanted to find out more. It was kind of a weird connection: I knew someone who knew someone who knew someone down there. So they arranged for me to meet with the community leaders. It was a wonderful set-up. I got to meet with people from Rural Action, people from the restoration project. I really didn't know anything when I went down there. They showed me what was going on. I realized the fire was a really good starting point to generate interest in the area. The mine has been burning since 1884 and people are intrigued by that. I was intrigued.
What became your focus as you spent time with the people and going around the area?
There were lots of different aspects. I thought it was important to talk about how the area was populated to begin with. The video starts with that. I think that another aspect is the sort-of corporate mentality, not thinking beyond the end of the day or the end of the dollars. Back then, during that period of time, it was considered "America's sacrifice."
The fire alone was a good story; people said to do the story just on that. But all these years the fires have been the only story told. People come in and take the story and leave. I wanted to show other communities how grassroots efforts can really make a difference. This is not only place this kind of thing happened, so hopefully other communities can learn something.
I only scratched the surface. The Millfield area still has biggest mining disaster on record; that's a whole story in itself that needs to be told. The story of the African Americans down there has to be told. They came up to this area during emancipation. During the strikes they were lured in to the mine. They would show up thinking there was work and realizing they had to get through a picket line. They were the first to be laid-off in disproportionate numbers because they did the jobs that first were automated. When people are coming in to take your jobs and if they are black you associate one with the other. I did not interview any of them and did not have any kind of entre into that community. I could not do it justice.
