The court's decision doesn't affect all mining, not by a long shot. Assertions to the contrary are deliberate exaggerations. The decision doesn't affect construction of shopping centers, housing or highways. Assertions to the contrary are deliberately deceptive. Mining methods can continue that put the spoil back up on the mined bench.
Mining can continue on sites that put the spoil into only wet weather streams.
I suspect that more mining operations will soon apply these methods. By promoting deliberate misunderstanding, government and industry officials are contributing to an official social atmosphere based on overstatement, exaggeration and deliberate deception. Governor Underwood owes his economic and political life to King Coal. Now that King Coal's absolute control is threatened, it is calling in the chips from Cecil Underwood. The only way he can produce those chips now is to cash in his public capital to create an atmosphere of artificial indignation and public pressure to either change the court's order, or to change the law, so that the coal industry can continue to regulate itself.