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Article: Mountaintop removal hurts state's past and its future: ; Man on the moonscape
- Article from:
- Charleston Gazette
- Article date:
- January 28, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2000 Charleston Gazette. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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As director of West Virginia's Division of Forestry, it was 1996
before I fully realized the magnitude and permanent elimination of
West Virginia's forestland in the southern and central coalfields by
mountaintop removal of coal. A helicopter tour of these areas and
the results of an updated forest inventory disclosed not only the
size and rate of deforestation, but the loss of West Virginia's
mountain culture.
Since the federal Surface Mining Act of 1977 was enacted, all of
West Virginia's governors and legislators of both parties have been
very supportive of the illegal variances in this law that allowed
mountaintop removal of coal. I served at the pleasure of governors
of both parties ...