West Virginia Blue
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Via Ken Ward Jr. at Coal Tattoo, comes a New York Times story about how a West Virginia community disappeared after being bought out to make way for mountaintop removal by Massey:
The coal that helped to create Lindytown also destroyed it. Here was the church; here was its steeple; now it's all gone, along with its people. Gone, too, are the surrounding mountaintops. To mine the soft rock that we burn to help power our light bulbs, our laptops, our way of life, heavy equipment has stripped away the trees, the soil, the rock - what coal companies call the "overburden."
Now, the faint, mechanical beeps and grinds from above are all that disturb the Lindytown quiet, save for the occasional, seam-splintering blast.
What happens when the coal that can be profitably mined is gone in 20 years? Will much of West Virginia be ghost towns like Lindytown?
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