Toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, selenium, and arsenic leach into local water supplies, poisoning drinking water. This destructive practice, known as mountaintop-removal mining, sends carcinogenic toxins like silica into the air, affecting communities for miles around.
Is mountaintop removal good?
Mountaintop Removal (MTR) is a very effective form of coal mining . Conventional coal mining involved miners tunneling underground to access and extract the coal. ... This first step often leads to good lumber being cut down and burned because coal companies operate on quick timeframes.
How does mountaintop removal affect humans?
Since 2007, peer-reviewed studies by researchers from more than a dozen universities have concluded that mountaintop removal coal mining contributes to significantly higher rates of birth defects, cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases among individuals living in the region where it occurs.
How does mountaintop removal affect animals?
Water birds and mammals eat poisoned fish and die themselves, or else they lose the ability to reproduce. Contaminants from mountaintop removal even poison the drinking water of downstream communities .
Is mountaintop removal bad for the environment?
Of all the environmental problems caused by mountaintop projects — decapitated peaks, deforestation, the significant carbon footprint — scientists have found that valley fills do the most damage because they destroy headwater streams and surrounding forests, which are crucial to the workings of mountain ecosystems.
What are benefits of mountaintop removal?
“With mountaintop removal you’re able to mine seams that you could not mine with underground mining because they are so thin —but it’s a very high-quality coal,” said Roger Horton, a truck driver and United Mine Workers Union representative who works at a mountaintop site in Logan, West Virginia.
What animals are affected by mountaintop removal?
Recent scientific studies have concluded that pollution from mountaintop-removal coal mining is harmful to fish, crayfish, mussels, amphibians and stream insects in Appalachia. Pollution from mountaintop removal is also associated with increased risk of cancer and birth defects in humans.
How many mountains have been destroyed by mountaintop removal?
Tragically, mountaintop removal mining has already destroyed more than 500 mountains encompassing more than 1 million acres of Central and Southern Appalachia.
What are 2 toxic chemicals that come from mountaintop removal?
3 Slurry, the residue from cleaning the coal, is impounded in ponds or injected into abandoned underground mine shafts, where it can leach potentially toxic constituents such as arsenic, lead, manganese, iron, sodium, strontium, and sulfate that ultimately may end up in groundwater.
How common is mountaintop removal mining?
Roughly 45% of central Appalachian coal is from strip mining, and almost 100% of that is mountaintop removal.
What law increased the use of mountaintop removal?
Mountaintop Removal
The two principle laws regulating mountaintop removal’s impact on streams are the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act and the 1970 Clean Water Act.
How do you stop mountaintop removal?
- 1 Be Energy Efficient. One answer is that opportunities for energy efficiency in the US are huge. ...
- 2 Invest in Renewable Energy. ...
- 3 Stop Exporting Coal.
What are the economic impacts of mountaintop removal?
Mountaintop removal not only whittles away underground mining jobs, it also creates enormous barriers to economic development and diversification , by making the area less attractive for other industries, due to the pollution of the land, air and water.
Are mountains better for mining?
Coal seams are extracted from a mountain by removing the land, or overburden, above the seams. This process is considered to be safer compared to underground mining because the coal seams are accessed from above instead of underground.
What are some pros and cons of mining?
| Mining Pros Mining Cons | Job opportunities related to mining Can lead to significant soil pollution | Important for the development of a region Groundwater pollution | Higher tax income for governments Habitat destruction | Mining is crucial for technological progress Biodiversity loss |
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Is coal good for the economy?
Coal is America’s most abundant energy resource—making up 90 percent of U.S. fossil energy reserves on a Btu basis. ... Coal is essential to the U.S. economy , providing affordable electricity to households, businesses, manufacturing facilities, transportation and communications systems, and services throughout our economy.
