Mountaintop Removal, When Mountains Move, National Geographic: Family Reunion

Family members visit at the end of a reunion of the Caudill/Miller family at their homestead in Mud, W.V. The family fought Arch Coal Company in court to keep their 26 acres, where they plant a garden and spend weekends. The home stood in the way of Hobet 21, a 12,000-acre, mountaintop removal mine. After a long battle in court, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a Lincoln County family was wrongly forced to sell its home to make way for the surface mine. Justices said a lower court was wrong to discount the family’s ‘sentimental or emotional interests’ in the property in favor of the economic concerns of a coal operator.”

The mining operations expanded to surround the Caudill property.