West Virginia is known as “The Land of Mountaintop Removal” as over 500 mountains have been destroyed by coal companies using safer and more efficient mining techniques. This video from the Smithsonian Channel on YouTube explains the process and shows the results from an aerial view. Rather than using the earth that is removed to fill in valleys I wonder why they don’t just move it to a previously cleared mountain top to build it back up then reforest it. I’m sure it has to do with the cost of moving the earth.