Beltway Removal Mining

It may be hard to make out, but that's a god's-eye view of Washington, DC. The red splotch is the footprint of just one mountaintop removal mining operation -- the 10,000-acre Hobet complex in Boone County, West Virginia -- superimposed on the landscape. (Just to give you an idea of what happen if the geologists ever find coal under Capitol Hill.) The image comes compliments of the excellent Appalachian Voices site, www.ilovemountains.org.

More cities are blotted out here.