This post copied in part from the BackWoods Drifter blog.

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Bringing Down the Mountains:
The Impact of Mountaintop Removal Surface Coal Mining on Southern West Virginia Communities, 1970-2004

by Shirley L. Stewart Burns

Dissertation submitted to the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History.

“In 1970, 45,261 West Virginia jobs were supplied due to coal mining and 143,132,284 tons of coal were produced. Thirty-two years later, in 2002, 15,377 people were employed by the coal companies and together they produced 163,896,890 tons of coal.“

“Surface mines destroyed people’s lives on a whole different level, and left them virtually helpless to stop it. Mountaintop removal mines polluted streams and filled in valleys. Some of these valley fills are among the largest man-made earthen structures in the world.“

“The massive machines on mountaintop removal sites have ensured that more coal can be obtained with less human labor and greatly increased productivity.The expansion of mountaintop removal in West Virginia since its inception in the 1970s has grown at an accelerated pace from forty-four permits covering 9,800 acres throughout the 1980s to the granting of permits covering 12,540 acres in a nine-month period in 2002 alone.“

http://kitkat.wvu.edu:8080/files/4047/Stewart_Burns_Shirley_dissertation.pdf

Shirley is also the author of the book with the same name as her dissertation and it can be found at Amazon. Bringing Down The Mountains - The Book

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I would like to welcome two new co-authors to this blog and to the blogging community - Matthew Burns, a Wildlife Management Specialist, and his wife Shirley Stewart Burns, PhD. As one can tell from the dissertation above and the article below, Shirley and Matthew are no strangers to the battle against mountaintop removal coal mining. I am very happy to welcome them to our community.