Photos by Vivian Stockman; Flyover courtesy SouthWings

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On August 29, 2015, OVEC staff member Vivian Stockman served as a guide for a pair of French journalists and a Mothers Jones magazine photographer on two separate overflights of mountaintop removal operations in southern West Virginia. Of course, the fabulous folks at SouthWings provided the flyovers, and we once again owe a deep debt of gratitude for the invaluable service SouthWings and their volunteer pilots provide.

Here are some fish-eye-lens shots of Alpha Natural Resources’ (formerly Massey Energy) Edwight mountaintop removal operation (permitted for about 2,00 acres!), with the 2.8 billion-gallon Shumate Branch sludge dam, which looms over the old Marsh Fork Elementary School and nearby communities along Route 3 in Raleigh County, WV.