[numberonepal]

What I can't understand (I'm no miner) is why these mines were underground rather than a strip mine. All the graphics I've seen show that the mine itself is only 260 ft down, but the shaft is 2 miles or so. Does this mean that the mine is under a mountain?

[montanus]

The Sago Mine is an underground mine. In fact, I think it even goes under the Buckhannon River. There is way too much mountain above the coal seem to do a strip mine. The vein coal is actually down below the floor of the valley.

The mine is 260 feet below ground. It goes horizontally back over two miles.

That's very common. In fact, I think the Sago mine is a new mine. Many mines run ten miles or more.

[FLAMING DEATH]

Yes, it's under a mountain.

A few years ago, there was a huge outcry here in WV against "mountaintop removal". Mostly, from my observation, it seemed to be a grassroots campaign by a lot of people who had relocated here from the Northeast. For some reason, there seem to be a lot of Northeasterners who live here...I've always heard that they came back in the '60's to "educate the hillbillies", so to speak.

From my personal observations, and in my opinion, the average West Virginian is okay with mountaintop removal, and I've visited a couple of sites and, except for the addition of certain drainage features and a lack of trees, it doesn't seem that devastating, or even ugly. Here's a picture: Incidentally, my grandfather avoided two disasters at Consol No. 9 in Farmington, the first in 1954, when he elected not to work overtime on a Saturday, and the infamous one in 1968, which exploded at 5:30 AM, just before he was to start his shift that morning.