"RALEIGH COUNTY, W.Va. — Environmentalists have turned a hobbyist drone into a weapon in their long, bitter battle against strip mining.

Junior Walk of Coal River Mountain Watch has recorded hours of aerial footage of mountaintop-removal coal mining and the massive Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment in southwest West Virginia — reconnaissance his group couldn't afford if it had to hire a pilot and plane.

Walk, 26, is the primary drone operator for Appalachian Mountaintop Patrol (AMP), a fledgling collaboration with Coal River Mountain Watch and other activist groups and New York filmmaker Laura Grace Chipley."

Dylan Brown reports for Greenwire May 30, 2017. [2]

SEE ALSO:

"Stream Rule Dies, But Ex-Miners Keep Fighting" (Greenwire) [3]

"'This Is Our Home. We Don't Want To Live Nowhere Else'" (Greenwire) [4]