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As a child I fondly remember drives with my mother and father along the winding mountain roads of my hometown. The scenary thrilled as we neared the bends of the "Scenic Routes" on those Southern backroads, and the trees opened up into clear views of the imposing mountains, and the valleys below. Farm houses dotted the foothills, as small as matchbook cars from our vantage point high atop the green mountains of Tennessee.
I pointed to one mountainside, across the valleys; ugly brown streaks scarred it's sides once worn down from the thousands of years of erosion that created the Appalachian Mountain chain.
"Momma, what's that?"
"Where?"
"Over on the mountain."
"That's strip mining."
"What's strip mining?"
"That's how they're getting the coal out of the mountain. They take the machines, and take off the side of the mountain, and get the coal that way."
"Momma, I thought coal miners went under the ground."
"Well, they do this too now a'days."
"Oh...."
Because I was only a child, I didn't realize at the time the implications of strip mining, and it's newer incarnation Mountian Top Removal. I didn't know about the damage to the Appalachian ecosystem, southern rural economy, and to homeowners.
Only much later, when the floods increased, the machines replaced those old coal miners, and those beautiful mountain vistas I had thrilled at so many times as a child were threatned, did I realize that something was wrong. Something was very wrong. I had to find out what it was for myself.
Mountain Top Removal - The Basics
Mountain Top Removal, the newer incarnation of what was once known as surface strip mining, where coal reserves are accessed from the surface of the mountain rather than underground, is currently practiced most heavily in many counties in Southern West virginia, Southern East Kentucky, and Tennessee. . In the Appalachian mountains, coal is layered between other geologic layers. The layers usually span several hundred feet from the mountain top to the coal underneath. In traditional strip mining, a swath is removed from the side of the mountain to access the coal underneath, leaving excavated strips along contour lines. Today, the tops of the mountains are blasted away with explosives until the seam of coal, a layer a couple to several feet thick, is exposed. Then, the coal is mined.
Several destructive practices result from Mountain Top Removal. Coal companies must bulldoze the Appalachian forests, which have been documented in the scientific community as some of the most biologically diverse woodlands on Earth. The topsoil is removed, and then the underlying rock is blasted away. The explosions have been recorded at ten to 100 times more powerful than the bomb blast at the Oklahoma City federal building. The blasts frequently cause noise and land stability problems for nearby property owners. Wayward rock is often sent flying from the blast to near by homes.
Next, huge draglines -- some measured up to 20 stories tall -- and gargantuan dump trucks remove the rubble in order to get to the thin layers of low-sulfur coal underneath. These draglines clear away the as much as 100,000 pound. That's as much weight as 40 Toyota Corollas! The draglines cost about $100 million and for profits' sake, must stay in continual operation. These machines scalp up to 600 feet, sometimes more, off the tops of mountains.
Second, the removal of several hundred feet of the mountain's top is itself destructive to the natural landscape. Although mine operators are required to return a disturbed environment to original contours, the laws of physics make it impossible to restore a mountain’s natural shape after so much material has been displaced.
Restoring the post-mining shape, natural vegetation, and habitiat is also difficult. This problem has plagued strip mining operations for decades. The large, disturbed areas that Mountain Top Removal introduces will likely never again see their natural vegetated condition. This has disturbing implications for the Appalachian ecosystem. Where heavily wooded forests once dominated the scenary, herds of deer moved freely undisturbed, and racoons and opposums made their dens, ugly brown scabs of disturbed soil are left for the decades of healing neccessary to restore some resemblance of their once untamed, wild beauty.
Finally, and most significantly to West Virginia Rivers Coalition and the Appalachian ecosystem, is the practice of valley fills. A vast amount of soil and rock must be removed to access the coal during the Mountain Top Removal process; it is not possible to return this material to its original location. Excess rock and soil are often deposited in valleys between the mountians. These excess piles can be two miles long and over 100 feet high. The practice of valley filling destroys aquatic environments, from the smallest, though most ecologically critical of headwaters, to vibrant, flowing streams. At least 750 miles of the West Viringia's streams have been buried by valley fills. The practice also creates valleys filled with unstable rock material that has caused significant flood problems to communities at times of heavy rains.
In some counties, according to CNN, 20 percent of the land mass has been mined by mountaintop removal. So far, about 300,000 acres of hardwood forest have been destroyed, leaving scars astronauts report seeing from space.
Copper Basin, Tennessee
-- http://www.thepostcard.com/walt/state/t
Once such example, is the story of Copper Basin, Tennessee. Until recently much of the Copper Basin, a few miles upstream from Ocoee Dam No. 3, was barren and bleak. Years mining and smelting produced acid rain, which denuded an area of more than 50 square miles. Astronauts could once see the red scar on the earth from outer space. Today, thanks to decards of restoration efforts by the Tennessee Valley Authority and other organizations, the Copper Basin's recovery has begun, giving the area a chance to reclaim what it can of its former beauty.
A common scene of Mountain Top Removal in Appalachia.
-- http://www.sierraclub.org
While mining industry officials say the changes have had benefits for ordinary Americans by ensuring a steady supply of cheap, domestic coal, Government studies have shown the price we pay for Mountain Top Removal mining. Experts say about 5% of forest cover in Southern West Virginia alone has been stripped away by mines, the streams that have not been completely covered by the debris contain dangerously high levels of silt and toxic chemicals, and those popular mountain vistas are vanishing and can never be replaced. Federal studies project that if the current trends in the newly rebounding industry continue on this course, over the next decade over 2,200 square miles of land will be affected. This is an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.
In my early teens my mother, a single mother already working two jobs to support her children, took on a third source of income. She began to sell crafts that we made at home in a flea market just across the Alabama, Tennessee border. She became good friends with a man who held a degree in geology, who for a little extra cash on the weekends, sold different gems and rocks. He often took us on hunts for quartz, limestone, and other interesting stones.
On one such trip, he showed us first hand the effects of valley fill. As I clambered up the piles of debree, he explained to me that this had all come off the top of the nearby mountain. As he spoke he picked through the brick-like rocks of clay and piles of limestone, in search of the clear and rose tinted quartz he had come for on this trip. I looked around me at the puddles of sediment, the piles of rock, and back up at the mountain. This....had all come from up there?
Coal companies, the United Mine Workers and supporting politicians say the flattened landscapes are good for economic development. It is their position that the flat places are opportune spots for jails, shopping malls, airports and schools, despite the lack of population and infrastructure in the mined areas.
Though a majority of the mined land is currently in the process of reclaimation, with one-quarter inch of topsoil and seeded for "wildlife habitat", the grass seed used, and the grass produced is being rejected by the cattle and other livestock of Appalachia. It is simply unfit for consumption.
Yet another pro-Mountain Top Removal argument is that coal extraction provides jobs and prosperity. High-paying coal jobs, which can bring in around $50,000 a year, with the average annual income in Appalachia around $25,000, are welcome in a region where the unemployment rate constantly hovers between ten and 15 percent of the adult population.
However, the coal companies are replacing the miner with the machine, and the jobs are steadily dwindling despite record setting levels of production. One monster dragline can replace over 100 skilled workers. The entire coal industry, including deep mines and other forms of surface mining, account for three percent of all jobs in the Appalachian region. This, down from nine and a half percent in 1979.
From 1970 to 1990, 45,261 miners were employed statewide. In all, 143 million tons of coal were extracted. In 1990, that number dropped dramatically to 28,876 jobs, with 171 million tons mined. Finally, by 1998 there were 18,635 jobs and 176 million tons of coal mined. The human, skilled worker is steadily becoming a thing of the past in the Appalachian coal industry, despite the steady rise in productivity.
According to U.S. Mine and Health Safety Administration data, mountaintop removal currently counts 2,300 employees in West Virginia. Despite the industry's claims of providing prosperity, counties where the most coal is mined have some of the highest poverty rates and some of the worst infrastructure and school systems in the state.
Two years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting in on a speech delivered by musician Steve Earl in our state capital, Nashville, Tennessee. He began to speak of the economic and environmental impact of Mountain Top Removal to the Appalachian states. It was then that he began to play his song The Mountain. I was deeply moved by his words. I remembered those drives down those country roads, and the memories of the beautiful mountain scapes, covered with the scabs of years of abuse from the coal mining industry. It was then that I came to the full realization that this was something important, something worth fighting for, and that I would tell anyone who would listen about the effects of Mountain Top Removal on our communities.....
Wessel Bear Lewis Begins Day Nine of His Fast at the State Capital for Mountain Justice
by Chris Lugo
Wessell Bear Lewis is on the ninth day of his fast in defense of the mountains and against mountain top removal. He started his fast at the Tennessee State Capital because he is concerned about the impact that mountain top removal is having on the environment. He is also concerned about the workers and the impact that mountain top removal is having on jobs in an already impoverished Appalachia. He believes that the best solution is for the Governor to call together a meeting of coal mining companies, workers, environmentalist and specialists to come to a resolution about this issue and until such a meeting is called, to issue a temporary halt to mountain top removal....
Read the full article, here.
"I think it is a play. It is something that is one and the same. You sit here and you blow up these mountains and all the dust goes into the air and makes people asthmatic. The runoff from the coal into the water goes back to make these people sick and then these people can't afford to go out and get health insurance. These are the people from Appalachia who are dependent on Tenncare the most and they are the ones that are going to lose Tenncare. It seems like the government is trying to kill off a way of life, the government is not trying to just kill off our mountains but it is also trying to kill off our people as well. I think the great spirit or whatever has brought both me and these Tenncare Advocates to the State Capital at the same time because one really is in hand with the other. A dirty environment is going to create dirty health plain and simple. There is no difference about that. Without health care people are going to be dying off that much quicker. People are going to be asking why their mortality rate is dropping from seventy to forty and they won't even be old enough to collect social security. There is a common thread to all our struggles. We all have this common thread and if you look at it it is there. I am reading Ghandi again. This fast is something that has worked and will continue to work as long as people are willing to believe it and as long as people are willing to stand up for themselves. I meditated about this fast for a long time before I did it. I have also done straight in your face direct action before as well. There are a lot of people who are screaming the problem as well as the solution and I thank them for this. I have heard Chris Irwin speak. He has said this is the problem and this is the solution. He is more part of United Mountain Defense than Mountain Justice Summer. I don't understand people who can only speak the problem. I worry about the workers just as much as I worry about the mountains."
--Wessell Bear Lewis on his reasons for the fast.
In just over a decade, the Mountain Top Removal technique has been used by the coal industry to flatten hundreds of peaks across a region spanning West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. The thousands of tons of rocky debris were dumped into valleys, permanently burying more than 700 miles of mountain streams. Finally, in 1999, concerns over the damage to waterways triggered a backlash of lawsuits and court rulings that slowed the industry's growth.
However, mountaintop removal is booming yet again. Thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations, the practice of valley fill is explicitly protected. U.S. officials have simply reclassified the debris from objectionable "waste" to legally acceptable "fill."
This new "fill rule," as the May 2002 rule change is now known, is a case study of how environmental policy has been shaped in the face of fierce opposition. Rather than proposing broad changes or drafting new legislation, subtle tweaks have been added to existing regulations. The consequences of which, are extremely important.
At times, thse changes partain to a single phrase, or definition, critical to the regulations. For exapmle, when the Environmental Protection Agency announced proposals last year to control mercury emissions, a move was made to downgrade the "hazardous" classification of mercury pollution from power plants. This seemingly minor change effectively gave utilities 15 years to implement the costly controls. In another example, earlier this year wording was inserted into a Senate bill by the Energy Department to reclassify millions of gallons of "high-level" radioactive waste as "incidental".This change spares the government the effort of removing or treating the radioactive waste. Changes to the Clean Water Act would effectively voice a decades-old ban on mining within 100 feet of a stream. Yet another proposal scales back the legal obligation to police mining agencies. These duties have been reclassified from "nondiscretionary" to "discretionary".
In October 2001, a federal mining study that was poised to recommend limits on the size of new mountaintop mines was compromised. Internal policy was also changed this spring, eliminating guidelines restricting the practice of valley fill.
While mining industry officials say these changes have had benefits for ordinary Americans by ensuring a steady supply of cheap, domestic coal, Government studies have shown the price we pay for Mountain Top Removal mining. Experts say about 5% of forest cover in Southern West Virginia alone has been stripped away by mines The streams that have not been completely covered by the debris contain dangerously high levels of silt and toxic chemicals, which leak into community drinking water supplies. Popular mountain vistas are vanishing and can never be replaced. Federal studies project that if the current trends in the newly rebounding industry continue on this course, over the next decade over 2,200 square miles of land will be affected. This is an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.
"Opposition [to Mountain Top Removal] is broad and deep, traversing all demographic groups and every region of the state," said Daniel Gotoff of Lake Snell Perry & Associates, a Democratic polling firm based in Appalachia.
As even more mountaintops disappear, and entire communities along with them, resistance has spread. The Coal Industry has begun offering to buy and demolish homes near their mines, which effectively depopulates entire communities. Those residents who do remain recite a familiar litany of complaints: dust, truck traffic, constant blasting that rattles nerves and sometimes damages houses. The sight of the destruction of the ancient hills, familiar landmarks and touchstones for generations of families, is even more disturbing for some.
Top elected officials, including Democrat Robert E. Wise Jr. and Republican Cecil H. Underwood, have spoken out in support of Mountain Top Removal, which they believe is critical to the coal industry's existence in Appalachia. Appalachian coal competes not only against other energy sources -- such as cleaner-burning natural gas -- but also against imports and other coal-producing regions of the country.
However, the environmental damage is easy to spot. In mined areas, the waste rock piles up, and the effects are felt downstream. Federal water-quality studies have found substantially higher levels of selenium, a mineral that is toxic to fish in high doses, in rivers near the mines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that as many as 244 species, including several that are endangered, were being affected by the loss of forest and aquatic habitats.
In 1998 W. Michael McCabe, a deputy adminstrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, passed over several large mines during a 1998 plane flight through the Appalachian highlands. The flattened hills were, "like landing decks for alien spacecraft," he later said in an interview during which he recalled the feeling of astonishment the sight produced.
McCabe said his agency had not anticipated the exponential growth of mountaintop mines. A key factor, he said, was a decision by mining companies in the 1980s to apply the techniques and supersize machines of western strip mines to Appalachia.
Ironically, the fill rule that reopened the door to mountaintop mining grew out of an attempt by the Clinton administration to strengthen government oversight of these dramatically larger new mines. But, what happened to these rules demostrates how policies are often bent to appease industry expectations.
In 1999, a federal judge called into question the legality of virtually every mountaintop mine in Appalachia. Faced with a potentially disastrous shutdown of the region's most powerful industry, the Clinton administration agreed to an out-of-court settlement, as long as activists would drop their lawsuits against the federal government. The adminstration promised a closer scrutiney of mining permits, and an environmental impact statement review.
But, this approach went nowhere. Negotiations between the EPA and industry officials on proposals for limiting the size of valley fills stalled and then stopped altogether as 2000 approached. The court ruling that questioned the legality of valley fills was overturned on appeal. Meanwhile, coal industry executives had begun to stake their hopes on an administration change in Washington. Many West Virginia coal miners, fearing that Democratic contender Al Gore's environmental policies would eliminate coal field jobs, joined prominent business leaders in campaigning for the Texas governor George W. Bush, eventually raising $275,000 for his presidential campaign.
Pverall, the cumulative impact of the regulatory changes has been to close legal avenues industry opponents use to challenge the practice of Mountain Top Removal.
Buoyed by higher coal prices and an improving regulatory climate, the coal companies recently took to the road to make their case for increased public support for mountaintop removal. Last month, at a workshop in Shepherdstown, W.Va., co-sponsored by state academic and elected leaders, industry executives argued that increased coal production could even help win the war against terrorism.
The workshop's theme: "The role of coal in economic and homeland security."
"Coal keeps the lights on," said Roger Lilly, marketing manager for Walker Machinery Co. Walker Machinery Co. routinely supplies the heavy machinary neccessary for Mountain Top Removal mining. "Coal today also is a cleaner, greener fuel, and it's our bridge to the future. We've got to show people what a great job we're doing."
In the face of regulations and proposals supporting Mountain Top Removal, many in Appalachia are too angry to quit.
One activist was quoted as saying, "When these mountains go, our culture, our heritage and our identity are gone. This is a spiritual issue as well as an environmental issue."
And, more lawsuits are still to come. The First of these will charge the Coal Industry with violations of the Endangered Species Act, as well as appealing permits for two new mines, one of which has produced plans to tear off the top of a mountain above a West virginia elementary school.
I look out the front window while at work, I see the mountains. I step out into the back yard while at home, I see mountains. I drive through downtown, I see mountains. Mountains everwhere. They are a part of our culture. They are a part of our heritage. The mountains are part of the Appalachian peoples.
I remember back to a Cherokee creation myth I was told as a child. During the creation of the Earth, the Raven, weary from carrying the mud to create the land, landed on the still wet Earth, and the impressions that his chest and wings left in the soft, newly created soil, are what we know as the Appalachians Mountain Chain. The oldest mountain chain in the United States of America. Some of the oldest mountains on the Earth....
The economy of Appalachia, like any other part of the United States, has cycles of growth and of decline. The problem for the region across the cycles of growth and decline is reflected in statistics on poverty, income and employment. The economic highs are not as high, and the economic lows are even lower, when compared to other regions of the United States. By several different economic measurements, Central Appalachia has the highest rates associated with persistent poverty in the nation.
Many factors in addition to purely economic ones influence the trend of poverty, most related to a lack of physical and social development. Appalachia is predominately rural, which increases the difficulty of certain factors in economic development. The region's traditional economy is based arond agriculture, extractive industries, and blue-collar manufacturing jobs. The mining timber industries play a leading role in Appalachian economics. They have provided employment, but have experienced long-term declines in earnings and growth. Blue-collar manufacturing jobs in the region have a history of being unreliable and low paying. While the economy of Appalachia has diversified across these sectors, none of these industries has succeeded in building up the physical or social infrastructure to the average level that other parts of the country have reached over the same period.
- More than half of the electricity in the U.S. today is generated by coal-fired power plants.
- Demand for electricity in the U.S. has increased by 136 percent since 1970.
- In the 1999-2000 election cycle, the coal mining industry contributed more than $3.6 million to federal parties and candidates.
- West Virginia has 4 percent of the coal in the world. The U.S. has 21.1 percent of the world total.
- 52 percent of U.S. energy is powered by coal.
- Over 1000 miles of streams have been buried by strip mine waste in Appalachia.
- In 2000, almost 170 million tons of coal were mined in West Virginia, with 60 million tons coming from strip mines.
- In 1950, West Virginia employed 143,000 miners. By 1997, that number was down to 22,000.
- 75 percent of West Virginia's streams and rivers are polluted by mining and other industries.
- 300,000 acres of hardwood forest in Appalachia have been destroyed by mountaintop removal mining.
All this, on the backs of the Appalachian community, the skilled worker of Appalachia, and the Appalachian ecosystem.
These are our mountains. Our mountains, and our homes...
The greed that is destroying the mountains, and the people, of Appalachia must be stopped.
Bibliography
Credit for content mentioned in this article, goes to:
Arch Coal, Inc., and National Mining Association -for information on profits, employment, and mining methods.
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, and http://www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/comme
http://www.wvrivers.org/mtrrevealed.h
www.tnimc.org - for an informative article on Wessel Bear Lewis' fast at the Tennessee state Capital.
http://www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/tinde
http://www.theocracywatch.org/deregulat
http://www.waterconserve.info/artic
http://www.sierraclub.org/appalachi
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/coal/l
http://cva.morehead-st.edu/, and http://cva.morehead-st.edu/article.p
http://www.populist.com/99.14.mountaint
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6880086/ - for information on the lawsuits against Mountain Top Removal.
Credit also goes to the Sierra Club, for their image of a Mountain Top effected by Mountain Top Removal.
