When you look at the fantastic scale of this operation, you can only question what might it take to just layer on a tree preservation effort on top of all the other activities?<p>What's it take to use an excavator of such magnitude, to mobilize an entire stand of trees and lift it out of the way, instead of performing a clear-cut? Or, maybe a system of trenches, moats and barges, to float segmented blocks of land our of the way, while the coal is extracted?<p>I get that it eats into profits to think like that, but then again, this isn't the 1970's anymore, and just look at the technology they throw at eradicating a county's worth of trees.<p>New technology should make it possible to subvert the layer of living soil, undisturbed, and hopefully, leave forests like this untouched, no?