Coal never has and never will fulfill its promises. Nonetheless, many miners vehemently support mountaintop removal. Other coalfield residents want mountaintop removal stopped. On their front porches, they used to hear birdsong and rushing streams. The blasting damages their homes, dries up their wells and leaves a haze of dust everywhere.
Parents hesitate to let their kids play outside because blasted rock can fly hundreds of feet.
Some sell their homes to the coal companies, but others refuse to leave. They watch as their communities die, as the lush landscape turns into a barren moonscape. Citizens also found it useless to complain to state politicians and to Republican Governor Cecil H. Underwood , a former coal company executive. Of all special interests, coal donated the most money to winning state legislators in the 1996 election. By the 1998 election cycle, total campaign contributions from coal interests to state politicians had increased by 29 percent.