Mountaintop Removal Mining in the Appalachian Mountains

     Hobet 21 Mine of West Virginia is a Mountaintop Removal Mine. Being mined for coal, the mountain primarily produces high-grade coal, a low-sulfur bituminous which burns with a cleaner, hotter efficiency in electric power plants. Taxes from the bituminous coal help fuel a large part of West Virginia’s economy. (National Geographic)

According to the Smithsonian, since the coal shaft mining processes in the area ended in the 1950s, the coal projects in West Virginia have since moved to become a project of “demolishing mountains instead of drilling into them.” This is the process/method known as mountaintop removal mining. (Smithsonian.com)

In this process, the disposal of overburden into adjacent valleys is called “valley fills.” Valley fills occur in steep terrain where there are limited disposal alternative. Typically these mountaintop removal mines occurred in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee. (Epa.gov)

(NWF)

In the method of the mountaintop removal mining there are five basic steps.

Layers of rock and dirt above the coal, called overburden, are removed.

Next, the upper seams of coal are removed with spoils placed in an adjacent valley.

Draglines excavate lower layers of coal with spoils placed in spoil piles.

Drag lines are huge machines us, some the size of an entire city block, able to scoop up to 100 times in a single load.

Then, re-grading begins as the coal excavation continues.

Finally, once the coal removal is complete, final re-grading takes place and the area is re-vegetated.

These five steps for provided by the EPA.

While coal is in high demand in the United States, the US Department of Energy estimated that there was a staggering 28.5 billion tons of this high-quality coal in the Appalachia region in 1998. (Epa.gov)By restricting mountaintop mining to small watersheds, this could potentially substantially impact the amount of extraction that takes place in these mountaintop removal mines. (Epa.gov)

Some of the coal companies in the region have been using explosives to blast as much as 800-1,000 feet off of the mountaintops. This is meant to reach deep into the mountain to reach some of the thin seams of coal. (Earthjustice.org)

The Environmental Protection Agency projected that by 2012, the two decades of mountaintop removal mining in the region will have destroyed/degraded 11.5% of the forests in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee. This equals altogether, an area larger than that of the state of Delaware. The overburden that is dumped into the valleys has buried 1,000+ miles of stream. (Smithsonian.com)

In a study done by National Geographic on the mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia, the results showed that as well as water pollution in the valley below the mountaintop removal mining, there is serious air pollution which causes dangerous health issues to the residents of the towns in the valleys. (National Geographic)

The Hobet 21 Mine produces approximately one ton of coal for every 16 tons of terrain that is displaced. (Smithsonian.com)

As far as reclamation of the mountaintop removal mines in the Appalachian region goes, as of 2010, 89.3% of these sites held no form of verifiable post-mining economic reclamation excluding forestry and pasture, while only 6.3% of the total number of site yielded some form of verifiable post mining economic development. These results only examined 410 mountaintop removal sites in the Appalachian region, while 90 other of these locations were excluded from the study due to being active with ongoing mining activity. The study also shows that roughly 1.2 million acres of the Mountain in the Appalachian Mountains have been the product of mountaintop removal mining. (Nrdc.org)

(Toxic Water)

Environmental laws that are in existence to help protect the environment and regulate the mining in the area include (Auoralights.org):

o   Clean Water Act of 1972

§  Is a safeguard against the dumping of waste and pollutants into waterways.

o   Valley Fill or 404 permits

§  A 404 permits must be obtained in order for mining which calls for valley fills.

§  This is an exemption to subsection 404 of the Clean Water Act, which allows for the issuing of variances to fill in an intermittent or perennial street.

·      An intermittent stream of water during wet portions of the year in the perennial stream holds water throughout the year.

o   Surface mining control and reclamation act

§  This requires that “all surface coal mining operations backfill, compact… and grade in order to restore the approximate original contour of the land with all high walls, spoil piles and depressions eliminated.”

·      It is not uncommon to be granted exemption from this.

o   Mining safety and health administration permit

§  Oversees the regulatory structure of the mines.

Mountaintop Removal Mines Prezi

Works Cited

Gormley, Neil. "The Poverty of Mountaintop Removal Mining." Earthjustice. N.p., 03 Jan. 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://earthjustice.org/blog/2013-january/the-poverty-of-mountaintop-removal-mining>.

Lexy. "Bucyrus Erie 1570-W Walking Dragline (Patriot Coal Corp. - Hobet 21 Surface Mine) "Big John"" Panoramio. Google Maps, 7 Oct. 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://www.panoramio.com/photo/41841203>.

Lindsey, Rebecca. "Coal Controversy In Appalachia : Feature Articles." Coal Controversy In Appalachia : Feature Articles. NASA, 21 Dec. 2007. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. <http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/MountaintopRemoval/>.

McQuaid, John. "Mining the Mountains." Smithsonian. Smithsonian, Jan. 2009. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ecocenter-energy/mining-the-mountains-130454620/?no-ist=&no-list=&page=1>.

"Mid-Atlantic Mountaintop Mining | US EPA." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://www.epa.gov/region03/mtntop/>.

Mitchell, John G. "When Mountains Move." Mountaintop Removal Article, Coal Mining Information, Coal Industry Facts. National Geographic, Mar. 2006. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/surface-of-the-earth/when-mountains-move.html>.

"Mountaintop Mine Looms Over House." Hobet 21 Coal Mine Aerial. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://olsonfarlow.photoshelter.com/image/I000029Xc7YTq3H8>.

Perks, Rob. "Environmental News: Media Center." NRDC: Press Release. National Resources Defense Council, 17 May 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nrdc.org/media/2010/100517.asp>.

Stadler, Felice. "We Have a Climate Problem-and the U.S. EPA Has a Solution!" Wildlife Promise We Have a Climate Problemand the US EPA Has a Solution Comments. National Wildlife Federation, 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://blog.nwf.org/2013/09/we-have-a-climate-problem-and-the-us-epa-has-a-solution/>.

"What Is Mountaintop Removal?" Legislation, Permits, Regulations ::: Journey Up Coal River. Aurora Lights, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://auroralights.org/map_project/theme.php?theme=mtr&article=20>.

"What Is Mountaintop Removal Mining?" Earthjustice. N.p., 04 June 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/what-is-mountaintop-removal-mining>.

Zielinski, Sarah. "New Guidelines for Mountaintop Coal Mining." Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian, 5 Apr. 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/new-guidelines-for-mountaintop-coal-mining-26399004/?no-ist=>.