Mountaintop removal mining series published in Roanoke Va Times

The Times says that mountaintop removal mining ” is reshaping the geographic profile of Appalachia.” Although it is “an efficient way to mine coal, it stirs environmental and cultural concerns.”
Here’s a link to the Ronaoke Times MTR story

One section of the Times report is sure to stir some controversy among people who live in the coalfields:

Dink Shackleford, executive director of the Virginia Mining Association… dismisses Mountain Justice Summer as well-meaning but misinformed. He calls the activists weekend environmentalists. They visit nature. They don’t live in it. So they can’t understand it. At one rally, Shackleford said, “I saw five or 10 college professors and I saw about 110 misguided kids 17, 18 years old that you can’t even hardly get mad at when you see them.
“They’re so young. You know they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
Shackleford gives locals who support Mountain Justice Summer even less credit than he gives the activists. “The people who are doing the complaining are the people who can afford to complain,” he said. They get their living out of a mailbox, Shackleford said. They’re retired or receive disability payments so they don’t have to worry about what the loss of mountaintop mines would do to the economy.