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After some searching I was finally able to find this mountaintop removal site within the West Virginia Development Office's pages:
http://www.wvdo.org/ipdb/displayinfo...ype=Site&ID=23
...and even though the map shown is not properly oriented, was able to find the area on Google Maps:
This is not the specific site I was looking for, and not the most well-suited to settlement, but at least there is contact information for an organization -- a place to start.
The coal companies seem to think the land they leave behind will be attractive to industrial developers. In a few cases they may be right, but for the most part these sites will be left to the slow process of reclamation by Nature -- after a cursory 'makeover'. There may be one or two that have been cleaned up and landscaped as false examples of the companies' 'responsible' environmental policies, but...
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10037688
...But since the land is already in a state of ruination, what better place to develop an intentional community (AKA
planned community)? Almost anything you do will be an improvement, and there is room in these places for an entire civilization.
What has been allowed to be done here is appalling, but the practice of mountaintop removal mining is one of those things that will not survive the transition. Coal does not have a future.
Those former mine sites do.
- fil
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