In October 2009, a swarm of bees descended on Community High School. These bees belong to The Beehive Design Collective; a volunteer group dedicated “to cross-pollinating the grassroots, by creating collaborative, anti-copyright images that can be used as educational and organizing tools.”  Based in Machias Maine, the bees are recognized internationally for their educational graphics campaigns, praised regionally for their stone mosaic murals and apprentice program, and appreciated locally for their work to revive the Machias Valley Grange Hall.

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Mountaintop removal mining is an unspeakable method of coal mining that has already demolished hundreds of mountains and the surrounding wildlife. Forests are cleared, scraping away trees, topsoil, and all other forms of life. Then, tons of explosives are used to blow the tops off the mountains.  The explosions often cause damage to near by building foundations, and flying boulders and rocks endanger resident’s homes. Huge shovels clear away the remaining rock and soil from the explosion, dumping it into adjacent valleys.  Next, a giant machine called a dragline digs into the rock and exposes the coal. These machines scoop up coal they need and rid of any unneeded material into the valleys.

Before using the coal, companies are required to clean it. They do this by using water and chemicals to wash the coal. Once the coal is washed, they use massive dams to store it. These dams are called sludge dams. These dams kill acres of forests and breakdown the topsoil which causes the ground to become very unstable. In turn, the damn itself becomes unstable.

After blowing up the mountains, coal companies are required by law to restore them to their approximate original contour. They shove the pieces of rock from the explosion into a pile that hardly resembles a mountain. Then they must reclaim it and make it green again. The coal companies do this by spraying a chemical called Hydroseed onto the rock pile. However hydroseed cannot replace or duplicate the beauty and wildlife of the original mountain.