Virginia & West Virginia have many abandoned coal mines that are useless & dangerous.
Why not use one to re-create the Louisiana mine disaster at LAKE PEIGNOIR for an action movie or as a theme park?
1) Find a deep mine, 2) create an artificial shallow lake on land directly above it. 3) Use an old oil drilling rig to sit in the lake & pretend to bore a prospecting hole in the lake's bottom!
4) Film what happens next when the bore hole penetrates the coal mine ceiling and lake water begins DRAINING down into the mine!
5) Which should result in a big, scary WHIRLPOOL forming on the lake surface!! 5) old boats etc could be set on the lake to be sucked down into the widening "drain" hole & if the mine fills up with water they may POP back up the drain like toys?
6) If the lake/pond collapses into the mine it will become a new major lake. If not the flooded mine will be forever fireproof & maybe a world of new creepy critters for robot subs to go visiting on the Discovery channel!
7) Since the mine won't be reusable this whole engineering drama can be repeated at another dangerous "smoldering" mine elsewhere for another whirlpool action movie!