Cool link to Moutian top removal pics

**MikeJones** · September 21st, 2009, 10:46 PM

Im pro coal BTW just think has to be a better way to do things. Alot of history and pretty hollers are gonna be gone.

Mountaintop Removal Mining - High Resolution Photos

**Jason** · September 21st, 2009, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by MikeJones

Im pro coal BTW just think has to be a better way to do things. Alot of history and pretty hollers are gonna be gone.

Mountaintop Removal Mining - High Resolution Photos

From what I hear the Virginia Game and Fish are thinking of releasing Elk in this area and the old Strip Mines are ideal spots.

**MikeJones** · September 21st, 2009, 10:52 PM

Yeah it workin In Ky. Not sure how the fishing is tho.

Sportsman* · September 21st, 2009, 11:48 PM

Originally Posted by MikeJones

Im pro coal BTW just think has to be a better way to do things. Alot of history and pretty hollers are gonna be gone.

Mountaintop Removal Mining - High Resolution Photos

Just wondering, any follow-up pictures on how they look after reclamation? These photos are 5-6 years old. Is most of the mining complete?

**MikeJones** · September 22nd, 2009, 12:12 AM

I would imagine they have up to date pics. But I doubt the folks on that site would post em.

**Gotch** · September 22nd, 2009, 12:13 AM

You know...you can't really reclaim a mountain that is no longer there. You can plant cheap junk pines on the stub and say look how pretty but that's a far cry from what was there before.

I tend to be pretty conservative in a lot of ways, even been accused of being an arch conservative here

but as a history buff it is nearly impossible to be "pro coal".

The northern coal interests came in here and clear cut dang near every inch of old growth forest, resulting in massive flooding. Then they all but enslaved the local population with their scrip for money and total control of the courts, schools, and churches.

Sure things changed and the folks working in the mines eventually started to make a decent wage, but if you look at the money made by the folks in the mines and compare it to the total that went up north it would, or should sicken you.

Don't know how many are familiar with the land buying practices (in some cases land taking practices) of the early coal interest? Or the murders and intimidation brought against the dissenters in those days? All of this is not ancient history. Your great-grand-parents may well have lost hundreds of acres of land that might now be yours and you don't even know it. So little of the history was allowed to survive.

They employed propaganda agents, including John Fox Jr. himself to twist and distort the facts and obscure the history, they employed land buyers, including Devil John Wright, to secure the land for them, by whatever means. They demonized and even killed opponents, possibly including Marshall Taylor.

What does all of this matter now? Your family, your ancestors were essentially slaves 60 years after Lincoln freed those of African descent. Maybe that doesn't matter to some but it sure matters to me.

Is having a fairly decent paying job that is likely killing you really worth the loss of your great-great-granddad's 250 acres, the slave labor conditions your great-granddad and possibly your granddad endured? Or the misery that they died in?

Okay, I'm stepping down off of my soapbox now........

**MikeJones** · September 22nd, 2009, 12:43 AM

LOL Im like you Im pretty conservative. But history wise I dont like surface mining mainly from the history we have lost that has been covered up. Old homeplaces, rockhouses, ancient camprgrounds etc. Also I like to get out and hike and hunt and stuff. I guess If you go to Leb or some place without the surfacemines and see how pretty it is makes me wish it was like that here.