Mountaintop removal (MTR) is one of the most destructive forms of coal mining ever practiced. Coal companies detonate entire mountaintops, stripping away forests and rock to expose the coal seams beneath, then push the debris (called “overburden”) into the valleys and streams below. The result is a landscape permanently scarred: ancient mountains leveled, headwater streams buried, and communities left to live with the toxic runoff and coal dust that follow.

The practice of mountaintop removal coal mining is a public health disaster compounded by generations of corporate exploitation, political abandonment, and economic dependency that left communities with few alternatives.

Ohio Citizen Action worked alongside Appalachian partners including Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and Coal River Mountain Watch to fight back. We helped build public awareness and political pressure that contributed to a landmark 2012 victory: Patriot Coal, one of the major MTR operators, announced it would cease mountaintop removal mining.

In 2013, Ohio Citizen Action organized a benefit concert featuring Appalachian activists and a preview of the documentary Blood on the Mountain, which exposed the economic and environmental injustices driving the crisis. And in 2016, as the Republican National Convention convened in Cleveland, OCA and Nuevo Cleveland hosted an outdoor public screening of the completed film, bringing the story of Appalachian communities directly to the national political stage.