Argument: Mountaintop removal often leaves no ecosystems b/w mines

Support

“Crede Haskins Calhoun: Mountaintop removal is destroying state.” The Charleston Gazette. December 22, 2010: “I have visited Logan County, W.Va., many times, and if they mine any more there (such as the proposed Spruce Number One Mine) the area and water resources will be destroyed forever. They just have not left any untouched mountains or ridges between mines. The habitat is already fragmented, which leads to invasive species and lack of genetic diversity, and the topsoil on flattened areas is gone for a thousand years. If mountaintop removal destroys Blair Mountain, this region loses its last example of a healthy “unbroken” Appalachian hardwood forest, and the last unmined buffer between mined areas gone.”