{
  "id": "1998-october-mire-on-the-mountain",
  "slug": "1998-october-mire-on-the-mountain",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1998-october-mire-on-the-mountain.html",
  "year": 1998,
  "month": "October",
  "monthNum": 10,
  "headline": "Mire on the mountain",
  "kicker": "",
  "author_name": "Penny Loeb",
  "author_title": "Reporter",
  "affiliation": "Charleston Gazette",
  "summary": "A journalist describes how public data access and database analysis revealed the extent of mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia, uncovering violations and complaints that exposed the environmental damage of the practice.",
  "keywords": [
    "mining",
    "database",
    "violations"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Investigative Methods",
    "Health & Environment",
    "Data & Databases"
  ],
  "technologies": [],
  "full_text": "The mountaintop removal strip mining stories are available on the Gazette's Web site at http://wvgazette.com/mining. Ken Ward can be reached by email at kward@wvgazette.com\n\nI've never met an agency official as willing to disseminate data as J.R. Hodel at the West Virginia Division of Environmental Protection. During the last week of February 1997, I began a project on mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia, which eventually became \"Shear Madness.\" I had never seen a coal mine, let alone a mountain chopped off. But I blithely faxed a request for all complaints and violations concerning mines to a top DEP official. In less than 24 hours, Hodel called to ask how I would like my data. When I met Hodel, he gladly handed over all the data I wanted, explaining that he believes in absolute public access. (His wife Martha is the daughter of a coal miner and an Associated Press reporter, who has written stories about the mountaintop issue this year.) Two databases were vital to my story. I used the complaints to find the most problematic mines. Then I scoured the permit files on the mines to find who complained. I called them cold; only one person refused to talk to me. Most were glad someone finally cared about their problems with blasting damage, flooding and dust from the mines. In the story, I counted violations and complaints by category, which helped make the case about problems created by such mining.\n\nDownloading gives me quicker access to the primary sources than relying on regional EPA flaks to send me press releases or industry lobbyists to provide their take on the controversy. And keeping the hefty reports on my hard drive instead of in piles on and around my desk has cut down substantially on the cubicle clutter - something every environmental reporter would welcome.\n\nOne of my first questions to the DEP chief of mining and reclamation was: How many acres are being mountaintopped?\n\nAs Ken Ward points out, they didn't know. I flew over the mines with our photographer and a top DEP official. The photographer and I estimated 10 percent of the peaks in the southern coalfields had been decapitated. The DEP official made a higher estimate: percent.\n\nOne day, I was trying to download the maps of mine locations from the DEP site. Lo and behold, there was a database file underlying the map that had every permit, including acreage.\n\nThe database was also supposed to designate mountaintop mines. That field was usually blank. But I added up all acreage for surface permits, so we said about 512 square miles had been surface-mined. I also told a DEP official that the database was missing crucial information.\n\nKen Ward has done a wonderful job of keeping this issue alive, with stories nearly every day. This has been a unique journalistic effort with reporters keeping the focus on this practice.\n\nA searchable database of the complaints and violations used in the story is available at www.wvcoalfield.com designed by Loeb. She is currently writing a book about how coalfield citizens are fighting oppression by the mountaintop removal coal mines. Penny Loeb can be reached by email at ploeb@usnews.com",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
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  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1998-october-mire-on-the-mountain.html",
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}