A documentary about a proposed Pacific Northwest coal project threatening the global environment is slated to be screened at Peninsula College’s Magic of Cinema film series on Friday, April 25.

The screening begins at 7 p.m. in Maier Performance Hall and is cosponsored by the Surfrider Foundation’s Olympic Peninsula Chapter.

Directed by Andy Miller and Robin Moore, “Momenta” shares the story of the people living along the coal export trail and the project’s global environmental implications.

According to the “Momenta” website, “Right now, in America’s Pacific Northwest, communities are taking part in a historical opposition to Big Coal and its reckless pursuit of profits. American demand for coal is declining, and as a result the American coal industry plans to extract billions of tons of coal from the Powder River Basin and ship it to rapidly expanding Asian markets via proposed deepwater ports in Washington and Oregon.

“Each day over fifty mile-and-a-half-long trains, laden with Powder River coal, will travel from Wyoming and Montana through hundreds of small towns to ports in the Pacific Northwest, leaving arsenic and mercury laden coal dust in their wake. The near-constant stream of escaping coal dust imposes toxic environmental pollutants and inestimable health risks to communities through which the trains travel.  And that’s not even the worst of it…”

Bill McKibben, an author, scholar and environmentalist, comments on the Momenta website: “That coal has to stay in the ground. You can’t make the math of climate change work if you get the huge coal deposits of the Powder River Basin out and pour them into the atmosphere.”

Admission to the film is $5 general and free to students with student IDs.

The next film in the Magic of Cinema Film Series is That First Glide, which will be screened May 2. The series is sponsored by the Peninsula College Associated Student Council.

For more information about the film series, email Sean Gomez at sgomez@pencol.edu.

For information about other upcoming events at Peninsula College, visit the college website at www.pencol.edu or www.facebook.com/PeninsulaCollege.