We have long since passed the era when we could find a vein of gold and spawn an entire generation to tear up the land in search of this precious metal. That doesn’t mean that we don’t continue to rape the environment for a living. In West Virginia, coal mining is not a thing of the past, but rather the way many people manage to make a living. We still rely too heavily on coal to make our electricity. That means we are promoting a system that forces men to risk life and limb by going deep underground to dig pockets of shiny black rock. There are other ways, though. Instead, we can blow the tops off of maountains and strip mine the entire thing until what the planet took a few million years to create is completely leveled.
We have been doing this for decades, so what’s the big deal? Areas in mountaintop removal areas have huge environmental issues. First off, what is lost when you take off the top of a mountain? Entire forests and ecosystems are destroyed. According to a study by the Environmental Protection Agency, waterways in mountaintop removal areas have a high mineral content and very decreased aquatic biodiversity. There are laws about making sure that some things are done for remediation of mountaintop removal sites. Unfortunately, the laws are not strict enough. Basically, when the waste from a mountaintop removal operation is piled back up, it is not stable. To make it more stable, companies compress it and then plant a layer of quick growing plants like grasses to cover it. They may go so far as to reintroduce tree saplings and elk population. Problem is that trees have trouble establishing themselves in the compacted soil, and elk populations eat the saplings and move on. But the ecosystem’s plants and animals are not the only issue. When blasting occurs to tear down the top of the mountain, dirt and coal dust is blown into the air. How far this dust goes and just how it affects the area hasn’t been sufficiently studied. Add to that the waivers given to many companies for replacement of topsoil and you have a recipe for disaster.
While there have been great strides in coal burning, it is still not a clean technology. Use of lower sulfur coal and newer technologies has resulted in much cleaner burning power plants. Unfortunately, what do you do with the byproducts of this cleaner technology? No one ever speaks about the filters or the deposits cleaned from emission towers. What about the fly ash and other by products of the industry, in all stages-mining, refining, burning that we need to dispose of? How do we deal with the heavy metals that are created and how do we keep them from leeching into our environment. If you think that this is not an issue, then consider that pregnant or nursing mothers are warned to limit fish intake, because so many species of fish are now high in mercury.
Coal mining has made a lot of people wealthy in this country. Unfortunately, not a lot of the workers. But creating wealth for a few is no reason to continue to damage the environment and harm our population. That is why I was so glad to read this story over at the EcoSpheric Blog. Residents in West Virginia made a stand and delivered a letter to the governor to halt the removal of the mountaintop of Coal River Mountain in Coal River Valley. It is the last remaining mountain in the valley-all others have been destroyed in the mining of that black rock. One of their concerns in “the proposed Coal River Mountain operation is its proximity to the Brushy Fork sludge impoundment dam, which holds seven to nine billion gallons of toxic coal slurry.” In order to blast home the loss of this mountaintop, the residents are proposing an alternative. Why not top this mountain with an industrial size wind farm? The resulting farm could produce as much as 1.2% of the power needs for the entire state, and create as much as 300 new jobs. But if the mountain is removed, it will no longer produce the class 7 winds that is does now, and that opportunity for clean renewable power is gone.
What would you rather have in YOUR back yard? A nice mountain topped with clean energy wind turbines, or a blasted mountain top with a toxic slurry pond and environmental damage?
