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Mountaintop removal (MTR) occurs as comparatively fresh form of coal mining that involves the mass restructuring of globe sequentially to email sediment as deep as 1,000 feet following a surface. MTR takes that a targeted land become number one clear-cut and then leveled by dynamite. A debris created is typically scratched into the vale fill - the practice that has twice been ruled illegal by the federal judge in accordance with a Clean Water Act. [http://www.sundaygazettemail.com/section/Series/Mining+the+Mountains/200205101]

Criticism
Critics contend that mountaintop removal occurs as fateful practice which rewards the little total of corporations at the expense of local communities & the epa. The Economist recently labeled the coal industry "Environmental Enemy No. 1."

In addition, high-profile disasters have called into question a safety of MTR. Virtually all famously, within 1972, the vale fill outside of Logan County, West Virginia burst. A consequent rush of 130 million gallons of toxic water killed 125 humans & driven 50 million dollars within restitution. Despite grounds to believe of neglectfulness, a Pittston Company, which owned a compromised dam, known as the event an "Act of God".

Within 2002, a 900 foot high 2,000 foot hanker fill inside Lyburn, West Virginithe burst, generating a big wave of deposit that destroyed many cars & houses. [http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/006/index.html]

West Virginia Mountaintop Removal
Information about mountain top mining and valley fill, and the environmental damage this practice is causing around the state and in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Judge Takes on the White House on Mountaintop Mining
NY Times article outlines the issues surrounding this mining practice in the central Appalachians.

Mountaintop Removal
About the environmental effects of this newly accepted technique in surface mining, which arose due to technological advances in heavy machinery.

Mid-Atlantic Mountaintop Mining
Information about an Environmental Impact Statement on mountaintop mining being prepared by the US federal government and the state of West Virginia.

Mining the Mountains
Archive of Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette articles on mountaintop removal, accompanied by text of US court rulings and a draft version of the never-published environmental impact statement on the practice.






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