The state’s program for reclaiming abandoned coal mines has long been plagued with problems, but state and federal officials have done little to prepare for this reckoning.
Author Archives: Ken Ward Jr.
Ken Ward Jr. is a co-founder of Mountain State Spotlight and a distinguished local reporting fellow with our partner, the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica. Ken spent nearly three decades reporting for The Charleston Gazette on the impacts of coal mining, chemical manufacturing and natural gas drilling on his home state of West Virginia. In 2018, he received a MacArthur Fellowship — the so-called “Genius Grant” — for "revealing the human and environmental toll of natural resource extraction in West Virginia and spurring greater accountability among public and private stakeholders.”
