Mountaintop removal is a type of surface mining that moves entire landscapes to harvest the coal beneath.  It is machine intensive, labor minimizing, environmentally apocalyptic, and politically untouchable.  To those who advocate for life on Earth, it is a public enemy on par with nuclear winter.

It has been euphemistically referred to in the industry as “mountaintop mining,” but environmentalists insist on the literal “mountaintop removal” or “MTR.”  In the coal fields of Appalachia, it reigns.

(Photo: Shutterstock.com)

The Process

1.  Skinning.  Forests are clearcut; sometimes they are sold to timber companies, sometimes they are simply trashed and discarded.

2.  Drill & blast.  Once bedrock is exposed, it is drilled through with dozens of deep bore-holes, and filled with ammonium nitrate explosives.  The rock is then blasted loose.  Blasting occurs at the same time each day; warning sirens pierce the air, but are not always heard by nearby residents whose properties are sometimes hit with flying debris.  The force of these detonations compares to dropping a Hiroshima-force bomb on Appalachia every week. 

3.  Harvesting.  Coal seams are dug out by dragline shovels (huge machines nearly the size of a city block and 20 stories tall), and enormous trucks.  Waste material, or “overburden” is dumped into adjacent lowlands, creating what are euphemistically called “valley fills”.

4.  Reclamation.  Under the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, mining companies must restore mined lands to an “approximate original contour” (AOC) after mining.  Critics call these efforts slapdash at best, and point out that the full damage may not be fully realized for decades.  What’s more, companies can be granted a variance on this mandatory reclamation if they “improve” the land for industrial, commercial, agricultural, residential, or public facilities [Charleston Gazette].

Who Authorizes MTR?

Every mountaintop removal site must be permitted by several federal management agencies - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement - before a single spoonful of earth can be disturbed, even on privately owned land.  The ostensible reason is that, even if you own your land, you shouldn’t be able to do things on it that adversely affect your neighbors, like polluting water.

Under the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act, public hearings are required prior to any MTR permit’s approval.  This is a crucial opportunity for interested parties to be heard; although mandatory, it doesn’t always happen.  In November 2009, the federal District Court in Charleston, WV found the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to have violated this law, and ordered the Corps to hold public hearings.

Sources

Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Career Guide to Industries.  Mining.  Table 1.  18 Dec 2007.  1.

Burns, Shirley Stewart.  Bringing Down the Mountains.  West Virginia University Press.  Morgantown, WV.  2007.

Burns, Shirley Stewart.  Mountain Removal in Central Appalachia.  30 Sept 2009. 

Charleston Gazette.  Mining the Mountains.  Feds to Probe Massey Mountaintop Mine Variance.  17 May 1998. 

Energy Information Administration.  Department of Energy.  Coal Production and Number of Mines by State and Mine Type, 2008-2007. 

Environmental Protection Agency.  FPEIS.  Executive Summary.  2003. 

Hansbarger.  Mountaintop Removal Mining:  EIA. 

iLoveMountains.org.  National Memorial for the Mountains. 

Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection.  Macroinvertebrate Bioassessment. 

Mineral Information Institute.  Mine Reclamation.

Mountain Justice.  What is Mountaintop Removal?

Physicians for Social Responsibility.  Coal’s Assault on Human Health.  18 Nov 2009.

Urbina, Ian.  New York Times.  In Mine Country, Tears, Anguish, and a Brief Pause for Safety.  06 Feb 2006. 

U.S. Census Bureau.  State and County Quick Facts.  17 Nov 2009.
1.  Boone Co.   
2. Logan Co. 
3.  Mingo Co. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture.  Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. 

Washington State University.  American Ginseng.  . 

West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.  Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease.  A State and National Problem.  September 2003. 

West Virginia Office of Miner’s Health Safety and Training.  2009 Coal Production by County.

Williams, Ted.  “Mountain Madness,” Audubon. May-June 2001.