Tourists watch as mining companies level mountains

[billr]

Tourists watch as mining companies level mountains in Appalachia
By Roger Alford, Associated Press Writer | December 18, 2005

HAZARD, Ky. --For Lyle Snider, the view from Kentucky 80 is breathtaking, but not in a good way.

Parked on the side of the four-lane highway, the New Hampshire native watches a mountain disappear bit by bit at the hands of miners using explosives and giant earth-moving machines.

"It really does look like a moonscape," Snider says, gazing across a barren expanse of dirt and rock.

Mountaintop removal coal mining, which had largely been relegated to the Appalachian back country, has been edging closer to major highways because of a mining boom sparked by higher coal prices.


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