Mountaintop Removal Mining Photos
Mountaintop removal-valley
fill strip mining has to be seen to be believed, but it is seldom seen
because most of the sites are miles from public roads, tucked at the end
of (formerly) quiet hollows whose access roads are coal-company
controlled.
About the only way you can really see and appreciate
the awful, complete and total destruction of this practice is to view it
from the air, which is what OVEC's Vivian Stockman had an opportunity to
do in October 2003. The pictures do not really need captions - the
images speak for themselves with silent eloquence.
You may want to skip the next these photos unless you have a really
strong stomach. It's not pretty. You have been warned.
The homes in this and the next photo are just down the road from Leon
and Lucille Millers. Unable to bear the house-shaking noise and dust
from MTR-related blasting and the psychological toll from the
destruction of their beloved forests and streams, the husband and wife
(related to the Millers) who own this Lincoln County, WV, home (above)
have very reluctantly sold their property to Arch Coal, operator of the
Hobet 21 mountaintop removal coal mine. The husband used to teach school
for a small community up a miles-long valley that was nearby. The people
were driven out of their community by the mine. That valley is now
buried under hundreds of millions of tons of former
mountaintop. Click
here to view hi resolution photo. Photo by Vivian Stockman,
Oct. 19, 2003
Click
here to view hi resolution photo. Photo by Vivian Stockman,
Oct. 19, 2003
Even this massive dragline (center) is dwarfed by the enormous scale
of mountaintop removal mining. Click
here to view hi resolution photo. Photo by Vivian Stockman,
Oct. 19, 2003
Marfork Coal Co.'s (Massey Energy) massive Brushy Fork impoundment
near Whitesville, WV, is designed to hold 8 BILLION gallons of
sludge. Click
here to view hi resolution photo. Photo by Vivian Stockman,
Oct. 19, 2003
Mountaintop removal/valley fill mining operations in southern West
Virginia have already flattened more than 300,800 acres of what used to
be one of the most productive and biologically-diverse temperate
hardwood forests on Earth. The coal industry prefers to call it
"mountaintop mining" to try and soften the brutal reality.
Some conservation groups have taken to calling the practice
"mountain range removal" because that in effect is what it
really is - more than 460 square miles of West Virginia are now low
rolling semi-grassy mounds, planted largely with non-native species and
incapable of supporting much more life than a shopping mall parking lot
(without the shoppers). Photo by
Vivian Stockman, Oct. 19, 2003
See above caption. Photo by Vivian
Stockman, Oct. 19, 2003
See
OVEC's Mountaintop
Removal Mining Galleries for more pictures
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