Corporate Sponsored Eco-cide: Mountaintop Removal

So I added a mountaintop removal badge to this blog because I want to make it known that I support the fight to end this mining style across Appalachia.

So what is mountaintop removal, anyway? It's an environmental cause that, in my opinion, is not publicized enough. I had never heard of it until about a year ago, and considering that it directly involves my field of study, that's pretty bad. To quote Mountainjusticesummer.org, Mountaintop Removal "has been called strip mining on steroids...mountaintop removal/valley fill mining annihilates ecosystems, transforming some of the most biologically diverse temperate forests in the world into biologically barren moonscapes."

Sounds pretty detrimental, huh?

That's just the tip of the iceberg. In addition to the fact that entire forests are clear-cut, the top 800-1000 feet of these mountains are literally blasted to bits in order to reach coal seams buried farther down in the stratigraphy. This airborne debris from the blasting further endangers the local wildlife as well as any houses, towns, manmade structures in the area. All the rubble left behind is then simply dumped into nearby valleys, burying streams that create the headwaters of important rivers as well as burying and destroying any living thing beneath it.

That's not even the end of it. All of this fill is unstable land cover and as soon as heavy rains pass through the area, it can mobilize into extremely destructive debris flows, similar to ones caused by volcanic eruptions. These bore down into the surrounding area endangering the lives of people as well as animals, trees. etc. The mining companies frequently ignore these liabilities or try to pass them off as "acts of God" for which they are not responsible.

The by-product of coal "washing," that is readying it for sale, is a slurry of carcinogenic chemicals, coal dust, and toxic heavy metals such as arsenic that leeches out of the coal directly. This sludge is kept in poorly monitored holding pools with simple earthen dams, typically built into the headwaters of a watershed area. Spills and dam breakages are frequent, causing catastrophic flooding as well as extensive polluting of any water downstream. This kills fish, fouls drinking water, and destroys ecosystems. The contamination caused by this type of mining has been measured over the years - many water sources are balancing on the brink of being completely undrinkable.

Coal companies would have you believe that this version of mining creates jobs. This is a lie. Traditional high-wall mining, which involves reaching the coal seams from the outsides where they are exposed on the mountain flanks instead of blasting away the top, is at least LESS detrimental and creates hundreds of more jobs. There are actual people involved in high-wall mining, not simply dynamite and a few guys to haul debris around and dump it into valleys. Looking beyond coal, building wind-power plants and other forms of alternative energies would create jobs too, of course - then the mining companies would be out of business.

This practice is an entirely preventable TRAVESTY to all of the ecosystems in Appalachia, as well as the negative impact it has on the health of people who inhabit the region. Coal companies are destroying beautiful mountain scenery, old forests, biologically diverse ecosystems, and the lives of people unlucky enough to be in their way. All for a bigger profit margin at the end of the year.

I implore everyone to educate themselves more about the issue. Please take the time to visit ilovemountains.org (click on the badge at the top of this page), mountainjusticesummer.org, or appvoices.org. There are so many other issues that I do not have the time to address in this post, please read some more and learn how you can help support the movement to end this dangerous and destructive practice.

Or watch this video. It will make you upset. Props, credit, and thanks to Kyle for finding it first.

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2198