''Coal River: How a Few Brave Americans Took on a Powerful Company–and the Federal Government–to Save the Land They Love'' is a 2008 book by

Michael Shnayerson Michael Beahan Shnayerson (born December 2, 1954) is an American journalist and contributing editor for '' Vanity Fair'' magazine. He is the author of several books and over 75 ''Vanity Fair'' stories since 1986. Two of his pieces for the magazine ...

. ''Coal River'' is a work of

investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend m ...

which describes an environmental controversy in southern

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

, where

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

companies are using

mountaintop removal mining Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), also known as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining at the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. Thi ...

. The book argues that towns, communities, and the environment are at risk. Shnayerson is a contributing editor to '' Vanity Fair''. His books include ''The Car That Could: GM's Revolutionary Electric Vehicle'' and ''The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria''.

References

Works about mining 2008 non-fiction books 2008 in the environment Environmental non-fiction books Environmental impact of mining Books about coal in the United States {{environment-book-stub

See also

References