Mountaintop Removal Mining in West Virginia
Question: What are the environmental impacts of coal mining in West Virginia and how do they affect the nearby towns?
I chose this topic because I find it really interesting and can relate a good deal of it to my major. From my research and the texted I annotated, I have learned a great amount about coal mining in West Virginia. The most popular and most destructive process of coal mining is called mountaintop removal. The process began in the 1970’s and consists of using explosives to remove the first 400 feet of overburden to expose the coal underneath. All of the excess rock and soil is dumped into nearby valleys and streams (Lovett). The reason it is so popular is because it produces a large amount of coal quickly. Previous methods required miners to go underground to remove the coal. With mountaintop removal, a lot of the man power gets replaced with big machinery that can move way more coal then a single miner could. The average mountaintop removal mine employs eighty-nine people for an average of ten years. The average underground mine can employ upwards of three-hundred people for decades (Blood on the Mountain, Mari-Lynn C. Evans and Jordan Freeman).
Even though the process of mountaintop removal is very profitable, it comes with some serious environmental impacts. This process has destroyed many towns and land, killing the people and wildlife in them. One negative effect from this process is the release of toxins into the local rivers, streams, and wells. The 400 feet of overburden that has toxic exposed rock in it poses as an enormous health threat to every living thing (Blood on the Mountain, Mari-Lynn C. Evans and Jordan Freeman).These toxins make their way into water ways and contaminate everything in them. It drastically changes the water quality. Right now 40% of the headwater ways in West Virginia will not pass a basic water quality test (Lovett). This means the water ways are not safe for drinking or support healthy aquatic life. Many times, the ground water near a mine will get contaminated and all the homes using that water supply can’t consume or bath in the water. This is common around the processing plants because harsh chemicals are used to prepare the coal. We saw this in one of the annotated articles from The Atlantic above when a tank leaked 10,000 gallons of methanol into a stream. All the toxins in rivers and streams are killing many fish species and effected the close towns. The water had enough chemicals in it to start evaporating into the air and affecting the heath of the residents. Multiple reports were filed with complains of people getting a burning sensation in their throat and lungs when outside. This is a problem especially in West Virginia because a lot of people rely on fishing for food and 2200 miles of streams and rivers have been poisoned ( “Ecological Impacts of Mountaintop Removal”). A study done showed that about 2/3 of the fish died off in a ten-year period (“The dirty effects of mountaintop removal mining”). A large effect from mountaintop removal is how it destroys the physical land. All the green aesthetically pleasing mountains are blown up and turned into a dirt plateau. As I mentioned before, this process has destroyed over 500 mountains and 1.4 million acres in forest. There has been an increase in CO2 levels because mining companies aren’t required to replant trees one they’re done with the land. They plant a non-native grass on all the torn-up fields. Since the land is not ideal to grow native trees, it is taking a lot longer for forest to recover. According to a U.S Environmental Protection Agency impact statement said it may take hundreds of years for a forest to re-establish. One last impacted I learned about was lung cancer cases in nearby towns caused by the dust from mountaintop removal (Blood on the Mountain, Mari-Lynn C. Evans and Jordan Freeman).There were and still are many health concerns with living near a coal mine.
I’ve learned a lot about mountaintop removal from my research and annotations of several texts. It has some serious environmental impacts that effects just about everything in the area. It destroys the land, pollutes streams, rivers, and ground water, kills a good amount of wildlife, and fills the air with cancer causing dust. One thing that still surprises me is that people will still live there despite all the toxins. Citizens in that region just love the land that much. I think with all the new technology we have today that we could definitely make some improvements on the process so it’s not as invasive and toxic. I would be interested to see if the agencies in control of the public safety around mines are truly doing their jobs and like inspecting all the tanks for holes. In the end, mountaintop removal has taken over West Virginia and companies are always more interested in making a profit rather than what mining is doing to environment. I provided a video about mountaintop removal and think it does a good job visually showing the effects of this type of mining.
Citations:
Lovett, Joe. “West Virginia’s streams are in trouble.” Appalachian Mountain Advocates, www.appalmad.org/slider/west-virginias-streams-are-in-trouble/.
“Judge Rules Coal Mine Polluted Streams in West Virginia.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 1 June 2017, 5:03am, www.usnews.com/news/best-states/west-virginia/articles/2017-06-01/judge-rules-coal-mine-polluted-streams-in-west-virginia.
Ghabra, Omar. “After the Spill: Life in West Virginia’s Coal Country.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 9 Jan. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/01/life-in-west-virginias-coal-country/384316/.
Board, Editorial. “The dirty effects of mountaintop removal mining.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 21 Oct. 2014, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-dirty-effects-of-mountaintop-removal-mining/2014/10/21/851c4236-58a2-11e4-bd61-346aee66ba29_story.html?utm_term=.b8376b800524.
“Ecological Impacts of Mountaintop Removal.” Appalachian Voices, appvoices.org/end-mountaintop-removal/ecology/.
Mari-Lynn C. Evans and Jordan Freeman, directors. Blood on the Mountain. Evening Star Productions, 2016.
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