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Thursday, September 27, 2007 |
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SOCIAL JUSTICE:
By St Mary Administrator @ 3:59 PM :: 212 Views ::  :: Human Concerns
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More on Mountaintop Removal Mining
"Mountaintop removal" aptly describes the novel mining method that became popular in parts of Appalachia in the late 1980s. Miners target a green peak, scrape it bare of trees and topsoil, and then blast away layer after layer of rock until the mountaintop is gone.
Hundreds of peaks have been decimated, and thousands of tons of rocky debris have been dumped into valleys, permanently burying more than 700 miles of mountain streams. Today, the practice of dumping mining debris into streambeds is explicitly protected, thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations. U.S. officials simply reclassified the debris from objectionable "waste" to legally acceptable "fill."
Federal guidelines have also been promulgated that allow ditches dug by coal companies to serve as substitutes for streams that were being buried by debris. Thus, it is easier for companies to dump mining waste into streams, and harder for citizens to challenge them.
Mining industry officials say the changes benefit ordinary Americans by ensuring a steady supply of cheap, domestic coal at a time of instability in global oil and natural gas markets. However, government studies show that mountaintop mining inflicts a heavy toll. Streams that have not been buried under mining debris carry high levels of silt and toxic chemicals, experts say. About 5 percent of forest cover in southern West Virginia has been stripped away by mines, along with popular mountain vistas that can never be replaced. People in these areas struggle with the resultant black, greasy sludge, and children suffer from coal dust.
One of St. Mary’s partner parishes, St. Joseph in Clintwood, is affected by this practice. Write the President; let him know that this is too high a price to pay for coal and we need instead to redouble our efforts to seek out clean energy sources.
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