Mountain Top Removal and North Carolina
Submitted by austinhall on Tue, 11/25/2008 - 11:58am
I live in the most beautiful place in the world. As far as I am concerned the mountains of North Carolina are in a class all to themselves. I am often caught off guard by the sheer beauty and power of the place I am fortunate enough to call home.
Most people love the mountains of NC for their peaceful beauty, I love them because they are not filled with coal. Our mountains had the remarkable good fortune to escape certain geologic conditions that leave the mountains in surrounding states, chock full of the dirtiest fuel source on the planet.
I am an organizer, actively working to stop mountain top removal coal mining, a practice that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described as "on of the biggest environmental holocausts in human history". Mountain top removal is exactly what the name implies, thousands of tons of explosives are used to shatter ancient mountains to expose thin seams of coal. The waste created from the blasting is shoved into adjacent valleys, burying forests, communities, and the headwaters to streams and rivers. The EPA estimates that in Central Appalachia 1 million acres of mountains have already been destroyed, and that at least 1200 miles of streams have already been buried.
North Carolina is the second largest consumer of coal mined using mountain top removal. Every citizen across the state, has a connection to a practice that is literally, leveling mountains.
In southern West Virginia there is a particularly spectacular mountain. This mountain is remarkably still intact...for the moment. Coal River Mountain is located in Rock Creek West Virginia, it is one of the tallest peaks in the region. It's tall summit is a beacon in a sea of mountains that have been reduced to barren moonscapes. For the past year community members have been tirelessly advocating for the installation of a utility scale wind farm on the ridges of Coal River Mountain. The mountain is estimated to have have 24 megawatts of wind potential, or enough energy to power 150,000 homes.
The WV DEP, and Governor Joe Manchin, have ignored the efforts of the community to reveal the wind potential of the mountain. They have ignored countless requests for hearings regarding the mountain top removal permits, they have ignored a petition with 9000 signatures asking for a wind farm. The public is screaming for a wind farm, but the West Virginian government just granted permission to allow the wholesale destruction of the mountain to begin whenever the company wants to.
WHY?
Because, North Carolina is still burning millions of tons of coal mined using mountain top removal. Until states like ours call for a ban against MTR coal, the West Virginia powers that be will profit from our thirst for "cheap" energy, and the people of the coal fields will continue to watch their mountains disappear, and the quality of their lives will continue to diminish.
In North Carolina we have a forth coming bill that will call for the ban of such coal in our state. Rep. Pricey Harrison will introduce the Appalachian Mountain Preservation Act, in the next legislative session.
If you think that mountain top removal is deplorable call Gov. Joe Manchin and tell him to stop blasting on Coal River Mountain. Give him a call, we will get a jump start on getting rid of mountain top removal mined coal in our state. Phone# 1-888-438-2731
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Wind v Coal is tough issue
Being originally from an area in California that has foothills and abundant wind I can tell you that creating electricity using wind power is more show than go. Every time I go "back home" it saddens me to see the hills loaded with thousands of windmills, half of which aren't turning because of mechanical problems. In addition, people knowledgeable in such things are pretty much split on the feasibility of wind power in the first place. It takes a lot of wind mills to create even a small amount of electricity and these monstrosities are not cheap.....and VERY expensive to repair, thus the wind mills I continue to see idle. Everyone there hopes that the technology gets better so that the panaramora that was sacrificed will eventually be worth it. Most are skeptical.
Coal is a proven source of fuel to use to create electricity. Modern advances have seen even BOTH candidates for president this year advocating continued efforts in the area of "clean coal technology". And, personally, I believe it is a very viable source of fuel for our country to use as we develop alternative sources that don't rape our environment and get us closer to ridding ourselves of our reliance on foreign oil. There have been many articles written on how companies are "reestablishing" areas ravaged by the process of extruding coal from the mountains in West Virginia. So far, as they say, it isn't perfect by any means but the effort is being made and it's all about money (isn't everything?).
Isn't perfect?
"There have been many articles written on how companies are "reestablishing" areas ravaged by the process of extruding coal from the mountains in West Virginia. So far, as they say, it isn't perfect by any means but the effort is being made and it's all about money (isn't everything?)."
Good Lord. First let me tell you a little about what happens during the mining operation: centuries-old hardwood strands of forest are clear-cut to make way for the mining and the transport of the coal. Then they blast and chew up the mountaintop until they run out of high-grade coal. The parts they don't carry away are rainwashed down the mountain into creeks, streams and rivers, forming what's called a "slurry". In addition to impeding the flow of water downstream, this slurry contains high concentrations of heavy metals like Antimony, Beryllium, Cadmium, Chlorine, Chromium, Cobalt, Lead, Manganese, Nickel, Selenium, Arsenic and Mercury. To describe what these heavy metals do to the flying, walking and swimming wildlife along the way would take a couple of volumes of print. Let it suffice to say that it kills in great numbers, shortens lifecycles, screws up reproduction, undermines immune systems which allow diseases to flourish, and these problems eventually impact wildlife populations miles away from the mining site. As far as the people living in the area, something like 70% of their wells have such high concentrations of Iron and Manganese that they end up not meeting even the recently relaxed standards of the EPA.
And as far as the reestablishment/reclamation, the mining companies often merely leave the locals with a chunk of money to do it themselves, which (of course) is frequently used for other things. But even when the company does the work, they're not required to replant hardwoods, and usually just plant non-native grasses to make the area "look nice", without regard to how this alien grass could affect wildlife or native plant life.
I would strongly encourage you to read more articles, and beware of "greenwashing". Energy companies have devoted a great deal of time and money fabricating an aura of "environmental stewardship" around themselves, with smiling children and beautiful vistas concealing the horrible damage they do. Don't fall for it. If they were that green, they wouldn't need to spend millions on tv ads, we'd all be applauding them.
Taking the good with the bad
I'm not naive about the process involved in extracting coal from the earth. I am also not so naive as to only believe the negatives presented against that process. I know much of what you've said is true in many cases...but not all cases, of course. I also know a lot is being done to correct these problems BY THE COAL COMPANIES. I can come up with dozens of reasons why backing up a river or even streams to create lakes to create a water shed and/or a hydroelectric dam is extremely damaging to the flora and fauna. I've read so many articles how people's homes were taken and even their farms and rances that gave them their living have been taken to create lakes etc.
The green people and radical environmentalists sing a song of doom at the drop of a hat....as they did during the debate on creating the oil pipeline in Alaska and in drilling there. Today? The VAST majority of those areas are far better ecologically than they were before the drilling and have become excellent refuges for all kinds of wildlife there.
We must get past the hysteria put forth by those that want zero change with regard to our Earth. We have a responsibility to use our natural resources for the betterment of mankind and to do that in the most careful way possible. We're beginning to achieve that.