Friday March 2nd Toxic Soup screened as part of the 17th annual Tulane Environmental Law Summit in New Orleans, LA. The screening went well and director Rory Owen Delaney fielded a bunch of great questions from the audience, sold some DVDs and gave away posters. As an added bonus environmental attorney Kevin Thompson, who features in two of the cases presented in Toxic Soup, participated in the Q+A as well. The next day Kevin Thompson participated in a panel on THE MASSEY COAL LITIGATION: COAL SLURRY CONTAMINATION IN RAWL, WV. This is case involving the preacher Larry Brown for those of you have seen Toxic Soup. For those of you who haven't seen the doc yet it is slated to be live on HULU with the next two weeks. Or you can stream it right now through Distrify at toxicsoupmovie.com. DVDs are also available on amazon.com as well as directly through the website.
You may remember that he Upper Big Branch mine disaster claimed the lives of 29 miners and, in the end, humbled Massey Energy and its controversial CEO Don Blankenship. Daring to confront the company known in the coalfields for its “no-holds-barred” litigation tactics, Kevin Thompson and several other attorneys sued Massey for contaminating the well water of 700+ residents of a rural West Virginia community with billions of gallons of improperly disposed toxic coal slurry. After 7 years of litigation, the case was settled days before trial last summer, but only after a judge was recused and the case assigned by the WV Supreme Court to a Mass Litigation Panel.
Kevin Thompson, Plaintiff’s Attorney in Rawl case; Dr. Stephen King, Toxicologist, Manager of Toxicology, Inc.; Stephen Wussow, Senior Research Analyst, Thompson, Barney Law
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