A strip-mining operation is under way in Blair, West Virginia, in which mountain tops are blasted off and the rock and earth are dumped into the valleys. Mountaintop removal is hardly new to the area. Recently however, the debate over strip mining has been reinvigorated by a measure signed into law in Apil. The law would allow companies to dump even more of the stripped land into the hollows and waterways below the mining sites before they would have to compensate the state for the damage.