Garbage Wars 2.0: More false promises of economic development in West Virginia

By: Morgan King

Outlets: West Virginia Watch

Published: January 28, 2026

Words: 974

Last Updated: 3 weeks, 3 days ago

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You may have heard of the “garbage wars” of the late 1980s and early 1990s and think of them as the past. Private companies proposed massive landfills filled with out-of-state waste transported by West Virginia coal trains returning empty from East Coast cities. Our state would export coal to power big cities, and, in exchange, we would take their trash for mega-dumps, many proposed to contain more trash than our entire state produced.

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