the devastating economic costs and mounting humanitarian crisis related to reckless mountaintop removal operations
Jeff Biggers, September 26, 2011; alternet.org
2009 North American Goldman Prize Winner Maria Gunnoe testified. “Jobs in surface mining are dependent on blowing up the next mountain and burying the next stream. When are we going to say enough is enough?
In truth, thanks to the heavily mechanization of strip-mining and shift to Powder River Basin operations in the West, Appalachian coalfield states like West Virginia and Kentucky have lost more than 65 percent of their jobs …
In a parting gift to the coal industry, George W. Bush altered the ineffective but longstanding rule that was supposed to prevent companies from dumping toxic coal waste within 100 feet of a stream. Under the Obama administration, the Interior Department has spent more than two years to study a reversal of the manipulation by the Bush administration.
“The very title of this hearing indicates a bias from this committee against those that are living (and dying) in mountaintop removal mining communities. The title suggests that jobs are at risk if the SBZ rule is corrected. The SBZ rule must be corrected in order to protect The People’s health. It was rewritten by George W. Bush at the cost of people’s health and it needs fixed.”
“With their powerful and courageous testimonies, Maria Gunnoe and Bo Webb put the whole issue of water protections and surface mining in Appalachia into perspective today,” said Elizabeth Judge, with the Earthjustice organization in Washington, DC. “They spoke profound truth to political power today, revealing the tragic injustices faced by people who live near mountaintop removal coal mining. Their honest words today made it clear to these House politicians that there is simply no way to justify the harms that mountaintop removal mining inflicts on families, communities and people throughout Appalachia. Bo’s and Maria’s striking testimonies today made it indisputable: Any attempt to block clean water protections in Appalachia is unconscionable. Lives are depending on stronger stream protections. Our nation’s leaders must not let the tragedy of mountaintop removal mining go on.”
“What about the jobs that will be lost if the strippers continue to ruin the tourist industry, wash away priceless topsoil, fill people’s yards with the black muck, which runs off from a strip mine, rip open the bellies of the hills and spill their guts in spoil-banks?
coal is mean and one thing you simply could not do was to trust this industry. No matter what the subject the conversation always come down to the coal company’s bottom line. All my life every political move has always been directed at propping up the coal industry in WV. The fear that we as Appalachians have experienced throughout time of being without jobs is nothing compared to the fear of living without healthy, clean water in our streams and homes. We as families for many generations have survived some of the most historically horrible poverty in this country by sustaining our lives from these mountains and streams. The biodiversity in S WV is what created the culture of the real mountaineers that we grew up being. Now rule changes such as Stream Buffer Zone threaten to permanently annihilate all that supports the real mountaineer’s culture. The coal industry obviously wants to bury and pollute all of our water and all of who we are for temporary jobs. Jobs in surface mining are dependent on blowing up the next mountain and burying the next stream. When are we going to say enough is enough?
The Buffer Zone Rule from the Regan era was historically was intended as a good thing for people who lived in the valleys where these intermittent and perennial streams flow. Over the years it has been crooked politics and coal money influence that has gutted the intent of this law. In my lifetime I do not know of this law ever being fully enforced. The coal industry and the politicians have for most of my life manipulated and twisted the law in order to legally break this law by destroying our valuable headwater streams.. Surface mining has demolished our quality of life and life expectancy in our native homes. Our communities are now war zones with constant blasting, pollution and all area surface mining has stolen our ability to recreate in the mountains and do what we culturally always have. We are being shut out of areas that we have always enjoyed. Even our historic cemeteries are left in accessible to the public.
…Mountaintop removal is an unprecedented form of coal extraction. Nearly a million acres of forested mountains have been obliterated. 2000 miles or more of headwater sources streams have been contaminated and countless water wells have been rendered unsafe for human consumption. Mountaintop removal has been in full stride now for only 15-20 years and already we are witnessing the short term effects of human exposure to this mad method of mining. What will be the long term effects?
Statistical research on Appalachian birth defects has found that a woman pregnant has a 42% greater chance of a baby born with birth defects than a pregnant woman living in a non mountaintop removal community. Equate that to cigarette smoking: a baby born in a mountaintop removal community has a 181% greater chance of a heart or lung birth defect, while the risk related to mother’s smoking was only 17% higher. That, “honorable” committee members is staggering. If that does not get your attention, then you have sold your very heart and soul. Your pro life claim is no longer credible; it’s false, and transparent. You stand on your bloody pulpit claiming to be pro life, yet allow our babies to be poisoned, disregarded like yesterdays garbage!
Jeff Biggers is the American Book Award-winning author of Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland (Nation/Basic Books), among other books. Visit his website: www.jeffbiggers.com
Bombshell study: MTR impacts ‘pervasive and irreversible’
January 7, 2010 by Ken Ward Jr.
“Mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for the losses.”
That quote above is the conclusion of a blockbuster study being published tomorrow by a group of the nation’s top scientists, detailing the incredibly damaging environmental impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining and the failed efforts at reclaiming mined land or mitigating the effects.
Based on a comprehensive analysis of the latest scientific findings, the paper calls on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Army Corps of Engineers to stay all new mountaintop removal mining permits unless new mining and reclamation techniques “can be subjected to rigorous peer review and shown to remedy these problems.”
According to the paper:
“… Clearly, current attempts to regulate MTM/VF practices are inadequate … Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science.”
A press release explained that:
In their paper, the authors outline severe environmental degradation taking place at mining sites and downstream. The practice destroys extensive tracts of deciduous forests and buries small streams that play essential roles in the overall health of entire watersheds. Waterborne contaminants enter streams that remain below valley fills and can be transported great distances into larger bodies of water.
The peer-reviewed paper, “Mountaintop Mining Consequences,” is being published in Science, which is considered one of the world’s most prestigious scientific journals. Science is the academic journal for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has an estimated readership of more than a million people.The paper was authored by a dozen scientists from various fields – from biology and hydrology to forestry and ecology – including several members of the National Academy of Sciences. A summary of the paper is available here for free. The full thing is subscription only. Updated: Here’s a link to the full paper, available for free. Scroll down to where it says “link to article and supporting material.”
It is without a doubt the most significant paper on mountaintop removal to ever hit a scientific journal. It cites nearly three dozen previously published peer-reviewed papers, government studies and a first-ever detailed analysis of West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection Water quality data:
Despite much debate in the United States, surprisingly little attention has been given to the growing scientific evidence of the negative impacts of MTM/VF.
Our analysis of current peer-reviewed studies and of new water-quality data from WV streams revealed serious environmental impacts that mitigation practices cannot successfully address. Published studies also show a high potential for human health impacts.
The authors note that the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act imposes requirements to minimize impacts on the land and on natural channels, such as requiring that water discharged from mines will not degrade stream water quality below established federal standards.
Yet mine-related contaminants persist in streams well below valley fills, forests are destroyed, headwater streams are lost, and biodiversity is reduced; all of these demonstrate that MTM/VF causes significant environmental damage despite regulatory requirements to minimize impacts.
Current mitigation strategies are meant to compensate for lost stream habitat and functions but do not; water-quality degradation caused by mining activities is neither prevented nor corrected during reclamation or mitigation.
Lead author Margaret Palmer of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science said:
“The scientific evidence of the severe environmental and human impacts from mountaintop removal is strong and irrefutable. Its impacts are pervasive and long lasting and there is no evidence that any mitigation practices successfully reverse the damage it causes.”
Co-author Emily Bernhardt of Duke University explained:
“The chemicals released into streams from valley fills contain a variety of ions and trace metals which are toxic or debilitating for many organisms, which explains why biodiversity is reduced below valley fills.”
Among the specific findings:
… Adult hospitalizations for chronic pulmonary disorders and hypertension are elevated as a function of county-level coal production, as are rates of mortality, lung cancer, and chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease.
Eshleman said:
“Notwithstanding recent attempts to improve reclamation, the immense scale of mountaintop mining makes it unrealistic to think that true restoration or mitigation is possible with current techniques.”