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Mining the Mountains

Since the mid-1990s, coal companies have pulverized Appalachian mountaintops in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. Peaks formed millions of years ago are obliterated in months. Forests that survived the last ice age are chopped down and burned. The EPA estimates that by 2012, two decades of mountaintop removal will have destroyed or degraded 11.5% of the forests in those four states, an area larger than Delaware. Rubble and waste will have buried more than 1,000 miles of streams.
Published On:	1/1/2009
Submitted On:	1/3/2009 5:31:02 PM by Frank K
Categories:	Habitats

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