It was disappointing to read the coal company propaganda, "puff" piece about mountain top removal in the July 4th Daily Mail. Has the Daily Mail shamelessly hired itself out as a public relations consultant to Arch Coal? It was shocking to see such outrageous claims on the front page as; "When we’re done with the land, it’s going to be as productive or more productive than it was originally." The picture on the front page of the "productive land" left after mountaintop massacre showed nary an oak, hickory nor any other hardwood tree. Hardwood forests have never grown on such barren land.

It is an insult to the entire mountain state to be destroying the tops of the mountains. Only a paid employee or owner of a coal company would say the mountains are going to be better after being decapitated.

Over 1000 miles of streams already have been covered with hundreds of feet of rubble. Close to 400,000 acres of mountain tops have been decapitated which is over three times as much land as is in our state parks. Every year, forever, we are losing eighty million board feet of hard wood timber that would have been the new growth on the 400,000 acres that have been rendered useless by mountain top removal. Every year, forever, we are losing the jobs that would have been employed to cut and process that timber.

The incredible claim, that after mountain top removal, the beheaded mountain would be, "...much more diverse..." is not even close to reality. Second only to the tropical rain forest the mountains of West Virginia support the most diverse plant and animal wildlife habitat of any forest in the world. This coal company from St. Louis is telling us that by destroying the hardwood forest, removing the mountain tops, dumping millions of tons of ugly mine waste in the streams that they are going to restore an environment more diverse than it was before! If this is the case then this process should be exported to all mountainous regions. Surely, Vermont would be interested in increasing the biological diversity of its mountains by taking the tops off and dumping the waste in the valleys.

Out of over 400,000 acres already destroyed it is generous to say that 10,000 have been used for schools, jails, airports, shopping centers and whatever else qualifies for "development." This leaves 390,000 acres with nothing but barren landscape. At three hundred acres each it would take 1300 shopping centers to "develop" that much land. At ten acres each, 39,000 schools or prisons would have to be built to fit on 390,000 acres. It is not likely that we are ever going to find a use for 390,000 acres of flattened mountains that won't even grow hardwood trees. if there is the possibility of "development" on those moonscapes then why was the Putnam County Toyota plant not built on a leveled mountain top? Toyota was not even offered the possibility by the Governor’s development office -- it was too ludicrous, too laughable, too ridiculous, too impossible to even discuss with Toyota.

Here is what Judge Charles Haden wrote: "If the forest canopy...is leveled, exposing the stream to extreme temperatures, and aquatic life is destroyed, these harms cannot be undone...If the forest wildlife are driven away by the blasting, the noise, and the lack of safe nesting and eating areas, they cannot be coaxed back...If the mountaintop is removed, even Hobet's engineers will affirm that it cannot be reclaimed to its exact original contour.

"Destruction of the unique topography of Southern West Virginia...cannot be regarded as anything but permanent and irreversible."

"The Court’s helicopter flyover of all mountaintop removal sites in Southern West Virginia revealed the extent and permanence of environmental degradation this type of mining produces... Compared to the thick hardwoods of surrounding undisturbed hills, the mine sites appeared stark and barren and enormously different from the original topography."

Here is what Bill Maxey, Director of the West Virginia Division of Forestry from 1993 until 1998, says about mountaintop removal "I think mountaintop removal is analogous to serious disease, like AIDS..."

"It will take 150 to 200 years before trees would become re-established following such a drastic "mining practice."

"It is a sad irony that mountaintop removal actually destroys more coal mining jobs than it creates; union miners are expediently replaced by relatively few heavy-equipment operators."

"This irresponsible excavation of coal makes the landscape so unsightly that it ruins tourism. (I can’t envision tourists coming to see these barren wastelands!)"

"All native plant and animals are practically eliminated."

"I resigned as a matter of principle, for I did not want to share in the blame nor guilt for the loss of West Virginia’s heritage through the loss of our forested mountains."

Mountain top removal is a form of biological warfare, destroying the natural habitat of thousands of species. Fly over southern West Virginia, it looks like it has been carpet bombed by B-52s. Mountaintop removal is the worst environmental and economic disaster in the entire country. Nothing like this has ever happened before. If the coal companies get their way they will take the tops off every coal bearing mountain in West Virginia. And the words to the song will be changed from "Almost Heaven West Virginia," to "Almost Level West Virginia."

As for the mountains being "more diverse" and "more productive" after mountain top removal, ask the people in Booger Hollow in Raleigh County. On Sunday they watched this "diversity" and "productivity" wash their homes away.