Mountain Top Removal

The United States coal consumption per capita is three times higher than that of any other coal-consuming country. One may ask where does all of our coal come from; West Virginia coal production has reached record levels in 1997 with coal productions of nearly 182 million tons of coal (West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey). Aside from just regular coal mining, West Virginia coalmines have been using mountain top removal mining. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, mountain top removal mining is defined as a mining practice where “the tops of mountains are removed, exposing the seams of coal. Mountain removal can involve removing 500 feet or more of a summit to get at buried seams of coal. The earth from the mountaintop is then dumped in the neighboring valleys” (End Mountaintop Removal). Many individuals, families and entire town communities have been driven off their land by the consequences of this type of mining. The United States needs to invest in more efficient ways to retrieve coal without resorting to mountain top removal mining.

Using the mountain top removal mining practice causes irreversible damages to surrounding towns and communities and results in flat lands where vast mountains once resided. Advocates of mountain top removing claim that once all the areas are repossessed, they provide flat land suitable for many uses in a region where flat land is at a premium. Coal companies are supposed to reclaim land, but they often leave mine sites stripped and bare, and when they do attempt to replant vegetation, the mountain never returns to its healthy state. At the present rate of development, there is enough developable land to last approximately 3,000 years (Appalachian Mountains). Also, in West Virginia alone, there are 95,000 acres of unused flat land. This is enough land to build 50 shopping malls or 400 fifty-acre schools (Appalachian Mountains).

The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that the “dynamite blast needed to splinter rock strata are so strong they crack the foundations and walls of houses” (Appalachian Voices). Mining also “dries up an average of 100 wells and contaminates water in others” (Appalachian Voices). There is an overwhelming concern in coalfield communities about the purity and availability of drinking water. Another major concern for surrounding communities is the thousands of gallons of contaminated water that looks like black sludge and contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals. The sludge is contained behind earthen dams, hundreds of feet high, in huge sludge ponds that can sometime exceed 500 million gallons in volume, but can be larger than 7 billion gallons. These sludge ponds are sometimes in close proximity to schools and private residences.

Mountain top removal mining is not just harmful to the communities and towns of West Virginia, but to the residents and animals. Many residents in the communities of Rawl, Sprigg, Merrimac and Lick Creek, West Virginia, have claimed they have had problems with their water for the past ten years. Countless numbers of these residents suffer from some type of health issue regarding the “long-term exposure to high levels of arsenic, lead, manganese, selenium, and other toxins which scientists have found in resident’s well water” (Mountain Justice Summer). These health problems range from liver and kidney problems to various forms of cancer and skin rashes. Many people who oppose using an alternative method of coal mining practice to the use of mountain top removal mining might argue, why don’t the residents just move to another city or state to avoid these problems; however leaving a place where your memories and history reside and start over in a new place can be a tough choice to make. Sludge ponds are all too common near mountain top removal mining sites, but the most controversial of all as of today sits less than 200 feet above Marsh Fork Elementary School in Sundial, West Virginia. Governor Manchin refuses to fund the relocation of the school even though the 2.8 billion gallons of coal sludge is slowly leaking from the sludge pond. Because the sludge pond is filled with harmful toxins, the students are susceptible to a variety of diseases due to the leaking sludge. It isn’t just people who suffer from mountain top removing mining, the United States Fish and Wildlife Services has written that “mountaintop removal’s destruction of West Virginia’s vast contiguous forests destroys key nesting habitat