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Surface tension MADISON, WV: Driving along West Virginia's roads, you wouldn't have noticed anything was out of place. Bright woodland and foliage rose up on either side of the traffic; the ramshackle trailer homes notwithstanding, it looked as close to a rural idyll as anywhere I'd seen in America. Once I climbed up into the hills, however, it was a very different story. From up here, out of view from the freeway, it was all too clear that thousands of acres of Appalachia's most spectacular mountain ranges had been reduced to rubble. Blame King Coal for decapitating the landscape. Mining has always been a major industry here, but traditionally it took place out of sight, below ground. Now, however, a modern technique known as mountaintop removal has dramatically reshaped West Virginia. It is, literally, a scorched-earth... [read full story]
