Coal pollution is getting worse, say people living in Russia's Kemerovo coal mining region in southwest Siberia.  There's so much coal dust in the air that the snow is coming down black.

"It's harder to find white snow than black snow during the winter," said Vladimir Slivyak, a member of the Ecodefense environmental group.  "There is a lot of coal dust in the air all the time.  When snow falls, it just becomes visible.  You can't see it the rest of the year, but it is still there."

The coal dust contains a variety of dangerous heavy metals, including arsenic and mercury is a terrible threat to the health of the area's 2.6 million residents.  The region is one of the world's richest in coal deposition and one of Russia's largest industrial complexes.  But much of it was developed during the Soviet era, when environmental standards were virtually non-existent.  Russia's national life expectancy is 66 for men and 77 for women, but the coal mining region's is three to four years below that.  Cancer, child cerebral palsy, and tuberculous rates in the region are all above the national average.

"We have inherited a difficult ecological situation from the previous times," said Kemerovo Governor Sergei Tsivilev.  "Open-pit coal mines have moved to the cities.  A number of coal factories have already signed an agreement that they will pay to rehouse those citizens who live in the sanitary-protection zone."