Some Facts about Mountaintop Removal Mining (Wiki entry):
- Approximately 6.8% of the forest in West Virginia and Kentucky has been or may be affected by recent and future mountaintop mining.
- Approximately 1200 miles of streams were impacted by mountaintop removal between 1992 and 2002. An estimated 724 stream miles were covered by valley fills from 1985 to 2001.
- The mountain area destroyed by mountaintop removal is equal to a one-mile wide swath from Charleston, WV to Myrtle Beach and on to Jacksonville, FL.
- In 1998 mountaintop removal employed a total of 2,300 people, less than 0.5% of all state jobs in West Virginia.
- Over 60,000,000 board feet of new growth hardwood timber is lost every year, forever, due to mountaintop removal mining.
- What are the effects of mountaintop removal on the environment, communities/families and the economy.
