Oct. 29 letter to the editor in the Charleston Gazette

Sometimes you look around and see the mountains, the trees, and flowing rivers. How the beauty has been in the eyes of those that have seen them. Well stop and think how much has been damaged by companies that are strip mining.

They take off the mountains to get the coal. They leave no trees to hold the ground to be eroded into the valleys. The mountains and trees are the West Virginia hills. Underground mining is so deep under the mountains that it doesnt affect the hills or trees. Miners can still get as much coal and have just as many jobs to support the people of Kentucky and West Virginia for work. As the saying goes, God made the earth and everything in it. So why destroy the nature and beauty of it?

Merrimac