Mountain Top Removal Strip Mining

          A Federal study says that between 1992 and 2002, 380,000 acres of mountain tops were destroyed. This is over four times the land in WV state parks. By 2005 the estimate is 500,000 acres. That is 500,000 football fields.

          3,000,000 pounds of explosives are used against West Virginia mountains every working day.   

          The 800+ square miles of mountains estimated to be already destroyed equals a one-quarter mile wide swath of destruction from New York to San Francisco.

          Of the mountains flattened less than 5% have any economic development.

          An estimate of over 100,000,000 board feet of new growth hardwood timber is lost every year, forever, to Mountain Top Removal strip mining. In 2005 that is enough to build 4,000 homes every year forever.

          Over 1000 miles of streams have been permitted to be buried in Valley Fills. This is longer than the Ohio River.

          An estimated one million acres of West Virginia Mountains were Strip Mined and Mountain Top Removed between 1939 and 2005.

          In 1950 there were 125,000 miners in West Virginia; in 2005 there are about 15,000.  

          The late Bill Maxey, retired in protest against mountain top removal. He was the highly respected director of the West Virginia Division of Forestry. He said of mountain top removal:

          “All native plant and animals are practically eliminated....makes the landscape so unsightly that it ruins tourism....actually destroys more coal mining jobs than it creates....is analogous to serious disease, like AIDS..."

Information, data and estimates compiled by Julian Martin

For more information contact:
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy wvhighlands.org and ohvec.org