Coal Mining and Ridge Soaring

I was doing some ridge soaring west of Boulder, CO on Saturday, and it
got me thinking about the "real" ridge soaring in the eastern U.S. I've
read articles recently, and heard a story on npr about "mountain-top
removal" coal mining in West Virginia. For those of you unfamiliar, the
overburden is removed, then the coal is mined and the land is
revegitated. It sounds like a lot of this has been going on recently
My question for those of you ridge soaring in the eastern US:
Has this altered the ridge soaring there?
It seems to me that the lift may have been replaced by a convenient
land-out field. Not an ideal trade off IMHO.

Shawn