In parts of eastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky strip mining of coal via mountaintop removal blows off the tops of mountains with massive ammonium nitrate and fuel-oil blasts. In the past thirty years, an estimated 500 mountains have been destroyed by this mining technique; more than 1,200 miles of streams have been filled with mining waste and fill.
With nearly 60 percent of its electricity generated by coal-fired plants, North Carolina consumes over 15 million tons of coal stripped from mountaintop removal operations in central Appalachia. It ranks as the second-largest consumer of mountaintop removal-mined coal in the nation.
In 2007, state Rep. Pricey Harrison of Greensboro took a historic step in introducing the Appalachian Mountains Preservation Act, which would prohibit the importation of mountaintop-removal coal into North Carolina. This was the first bill of its kind in the nation. (The News Observer, 4/18/09)
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