What is Mountaintop Mining?

MOUNTAINTOP MINING is simply coal mining that occurs at or near the topmost portion of a mountain. There have been various emotional statements in the press about this form of mining that are neither based on fact nor supported by the truth.
Surface mining methods are essentially the same as highway construction.

 

Valley fills are areas where the rock and dirt from mining excavation is placed according to a plan designed by engineers and approved by government agencies. The fills usually occur in dry stream beds of what are known as ephemeral or intermittent streams – streams that flow only when it rains.
Contrary to what is portrayed in the press, the amount of actual stream loss from fills is minimal. In other words, where most valley fills are placed, there is no actual stream.
Far from the destructiveness portrayed in the mass media, mining operations have actually helped improve habitat for wildlife in Appalachia. Today, we are once again seeing elk and wild horses on former mountaintop mining sites.
Perhaps most important, mountaintop mining has also created numerous sites for new schools, hospitals, shopping centers, parks, golf courses, housing, airports, industry, agriculture and timber – providing southern West Virginia valuable sites for sustainable economic development.
Here is a partial list of sites in West Virginia and Kentucky:                          

 

  1. West Virginia:
    1. Pete Dye Golf Course
    2. Mount View High School
    3. New Hope Village - homes for 70 families
    4. Knights of Columbus Community Park                                
    5. Davis Cemetery
    6. Robert Byrd High School
    7. Logan County Airport
    8. Weirton housing development and hospital
    9. Anker Sports Complex
    10.  Twisted Gun Golf course 
    11.  Hilltop hunting preserve
    12. Beckley Soccer Complex;
    13. Hatfield-McCoy Trail will have 3,000 center

 

 

 

In Kentucky: (A partial list)                                                        

  1.  
    1. Big Sandy Regional Airport
    2. Carroll Airport; Ford Airport
    3. Ohio County Airport
    4. Correctional facilities –                  

                                                              i.      Federal Correctional Institute

                                                            ii.      East Kentucky Correctional Complex

                                                          iii.      Medium Security Prison Knot County

                                                           iv.      Otter Creek Correctional Center

                                                             v.      Juvenile Boot Camp

5. Facilities –

                                                              i.      Clements Job Corps Center

                                                            ii.      Army National Guard Training Center

                                                          iii.      Six solid waste landfills

                                                           iv.      Hazard Amory; jail and state police barracks

                    6. Farms –

                                                              i.      Mapco/Morehead Agriculture Center

                                                            ii.      Martin County Coal Corp. Farm

                                                          iii.      DNR Brangus Farm

                                                           iv.      Hawk Farm

                    7. Industrial/Commercial –

                                                              i.      Clay Industrial Park

                                                            ii.      Coalfields Industrial Park

 

 

 

These are all sites and facilities that would likely have been

impossible to build were it not for the availability of mountaintop mine lands.