Mountaintop removal mining is flattening the peaks of Appalachia and filling its rivers with toxic waste. The practice violates the Clean Water Act, but deft maneuvering by the Bush administration has enabled the mining industry to continue blowing up mountains and poisoning water ways. Erik Reece, a writer-in-residence at the University of Kentucky and author of Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness, talks with the NRDC’s Daniel Hinerfeld about the implications for Appalachia. The podcast includes an excerpt from a speech by NRDC Senior Attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

» Read Appalachian Apocalypse in OnEarth's Summer 2007 issue