Box 72

Scope and Contents Series 8 consists of materials related to OVEC’s efforts to stop mountaintop removal mining (MTR), one of its most important missions. In practice, MTR mining used explosives to obliterate mountain tops, revealing the coal seams below for extraction. Overburn or spoils from the process were then dumped into the surrounding streams as “valley fill.” Valley fills disrupted the natural dissipation of rainwater and led to catastrophic flooding downstream. A secondary result of MTR mining was the...