Since the mid-1980s, a controversial practice called mountaintop-removal mining has been used to excavate coal from the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Miners clear the forest, and then use explosives to shake loose the stone, which is combed for coal. The leftover material is spread into nearby valleys. At least 800 square miles of mountains have been leveled, an even greater swath of forests felled, and 1,200 miles of streams buried by debris. Opponents say the practice leaves locals vulnerable to floods and sickness aggravated by pollution. Activists have fought a losing legal battle against mountaintop removal mining. A 2002 "clarification" of the http://www.epa.gov/r5water/cwa.htm Clean Water Act allowed miners to continue pushing waste into streams. In August of this year, the federal http://www.osmre.gov/ Office of Surface Mining issued rules that will permit companies to operate within 100 feet of a stream, overturning a Reagan-era rule that nominally forbade the practice. Left: Before mountaintop mining the Appalachian mountains in southern West Virginia were covered by a temperate hardwood rain forest. Environmentalists call them the lungs of the East Coast. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Mining Preparation =
description To reach buried seams of coal, mountaintop-removal mining does just that – removes the tops of mountains. The first step is clearing the forest. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 
credit Photo: Giles Ashford
Blasting =
description After clearing the forest, miners rupture mountaintops with explosives – 3 million pounds daily in West Virginia alone, say mining opponents. 
Dragline Excavation =
description Machines 20 stories tall, called draglines, excavate the coal. Here it is done in Boone County, West Virginia. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 
Debris-Filled Valley =
description Mining companies push the leftover debris into nearby valleys. More than 1,200 miles of stream were buried in this fashion between 1985 and 2001. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 
Mountaintop Mining’s Reach Between 1985 and 2001, miners leveled about 800 square miles of Appalachian mountains. This site is near the Charleston, West Virginia, airport. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Land Recovery =
description When the coal removal is finished, the denuded and leveled mountains return to nature slowly, if at all. The forest will take centuries to regrow, but the mountains stay flat forever. Pictured is Kayford Mountain, West Virginia. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 
Flooding Follows Mining =
description Environmentalists say stripping mountains of plants, whose roots held soil in place, absorbing heavy rains and spring runoff, means communities downstream from former mine sites are in danger of floods like the one that submerged Logan County, West Virginia, in 2004. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 
Dirty Water =
description Downstream from the buried valleys, silt and debris muddy the water and, some residents say, make them ill. Pictured are Kenny Stroud and his son in their Rawl, West Virginia, home in June 2005. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 
The People Protest =
description Mountaintop mining opponents protest outside a Massey Energy coal plant near Sundial, West Virginia. Regulatory changes issued by the Bush administration have favored coal companies engaged in legal battles with activists. Image: courtesy of Vivian Stockman of the http://www.ohvec.org Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 
Google Earth Imagery =
description Google Earth’s free, high-quality satellite imagery allows people to overlay their own data, transforming the images from static landscapes to a living map of human activity. Google Earth has been used to focus on the http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/06/google_darfur genocide in Darfur, http://news.com.com/Find+toxic+wastelands+via+Google+Earth/2100-1028_3 -6150952.html toxic pollution and http://www.ilovemountains.org/multimedia/#ge mountaintop mining in Appalachia as seen here. To http://www.ilovemountains.org/memorial_tutorial install and customize Google Earth, follow these directions.
