Yale Environment 360 has won the 2010 National Magazine Award for best video for an original report it produced and featured on the site about the environmental and human costs of mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Entitled “Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining,” the 20-minute video — directed by Chad Stevens and produced in collaboration with MediaStorm — chronicles the impact of the destructive mining practice, which involves blasting the tops off mountains to get at the coal seams below. Mountaintop removal mining has destroyed or severely damaged more than a million acres of Appalachian forest, buried nearly 2,000 miles of streams in mining debris, contaminated water supplies, and driven some local residents from their homes. This is the first year that the American Society of Magazine Editors has sponsored National Magazine Awards for digital media.
Watch the video