A former director of the West Virginia Division of Forestry who resigned to protest mountaintop removal coal mining has died of cancer.

William "Bill" Maxey died at a hospice in Charleston on Saturday. He was 70.

Former Governor Caperton appointed him director of the Division of Forestry in 1993. He resigned in 1998.

Maxey said at the time that aides to then-Governor Underwood forced him to issue a statement toning down his position.

He also alleged state Environmental Protection officials and the federal Office of Surface Mining tried to get him to approve regulations that would justify mountaintop removal mining, the practice of blasting the tops off of mountains to get at coal seams.

Maxey was born in the Boone County town of Nellis and worked as a forester and a logging superintendent in southern West Virginia and western Virginia.

He also was a tenured associate professor at WVU.

Maxey is survived by his wife, three sons, a daughter and ten randchildren.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)