Mountaintop removal mining is a form of strip mining in which coal companies use explosives to blast as much as 800 to 1000 feet off the tops of mountains order to reach the coal seams that lie underneath. The resulting millions of tons of waste rock, dirt, and vegetation are then dumped into surrounding valleys, burying miles and miles of streams under piles of rubble hundreds of feet deep. Mountaintop removal mining harms not only aquatic ecosystem, and water quality, it also destroys hundreds of acres of healthy forests and fish and wildlife habitat, including habitat of threatened and endangered species, when the tops of mountains are blasted away.

Throughout the Appalachian region of the Eastern United States, hundreds of mountains have been flattened – first by clear-cutting forests, then by blowing off the top layers of rock with powerful explosives. Giant cranes (draglines) expose buried coal by scraping billions of tons of dirt off the mountain. The debris is then dumped into neighboring valleys and streams. Rather than remove coal from the mountain, MTR removes the mountain from the coal.

On-going financing of destructive operations.