Mountaintop Mining ...We know that white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy and when he has conquered it he moves on... The Whites too shall pass, perhaps sooner than other tribes. sspeech attributed to Chief Seattle in response to President Franklin Pierce, 1855. aking trapezoids out of triangles on a massive scalesthat is what coal companies do with mountaintop mining, and it has to stop. EPA’s Region 3 Administrator Shawn Garvin is on course to stopping it, at least in one location, and EPA is to be commended for finally challenging the coal industry and for regulating this devastating practice (John M. Broder, The New York Times, October 15, 2010 www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/science/earth/16westvirginia.html). Mountaintop mining is a relatively recent form of surface mining begun in the 1960s: to obtain seams of low-sulfur coal from the upper portions of mountains, the tops are removed, exposing the coal seams, and the associated mining overburden is disposed of in adjacent valleys. According to EPA’s Region 3 Web site,
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Valley fills occur in steep terrain where there are limited disposal alternatives. Mountaintop coal mining operations are concentrated in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, western Virginia, and scattered areas of eastern Tennessee (www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/). Five steps comprise the entire operation: (1) blasting with explosives and removing the rock and dirt above the seam/s (the overburden); (2) removing the upper seams of coal and placing the excess spoils in an adjacent valley; (3) using draglines to excavate the lower layers of coal and placing the spoils in piles; (4) regrading to try to approximate the original contour of the mountain as final coal excavation continues; and (5) final regrading and revegetating the area. Last year EPA determined that the Spruce No. 1 planned mining operation in Logan County, West Virginia “raised significant environmental and water quality concerns”, and it decided to review the permit for Arch Coal under the Clean Water Act, Section 404. The
8794 9 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / December 1, 2010
Bush administration had granted the permit in 2007. The Wall Street Journal claims this would be the first time a permit has been revoked after issuance, but if that is the case, it is justified in this the largest of all mountaintop operations. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will now review the 85-page document prepared by Region 3, and make the final decision before the end of this year. The Sierra Club’s Executive Director Michael Brune called the Spruce No. 1 operation the “mother of all mountaintop removal coal mines”. It involves dynamiting 2278 ac (922 ha) of mountaintops, and EPA’s review shows “that the project would bury more than 7 mi [11 km] of the Pigeonroost Branch and Oldhouse Branch streams [by disposal of] 110 million yd3 [84 × 106 m3] of spoil” (NYT, October 15, 2010). According to Arch Coal’s spokesperson, Kim Link, “If the EPA proceeds with its unlawful veto of the Spruce permitsas it appears determined to dosWest Virginia’s economy and future tax base will suffer a serious blow.” In the noted October 15, 2010 story by the New York Times, Ms. Link said that the company planned to spend $250 million dollars on the project and employ 250 people, contributing tens of millions of dollars in tax revenues to a region that is struggling economically (NYT, October 15, 2010). Are 250 jobs a legitimate rationale for irreparably changing 2278 acres of mountain lands forever? Arch Coal has stated that it will construct new streams elsewhere to “replace” the miles of buried streams. But the Pigeonhouse and Oldhouse streams will be submerged in rubble and leaking toxic metals and metalloids for decades, if not centuries. Can jobs be that costly? For me, there’s a simple principle involved: If it is irreversible, you simply do not do it. Not on this scale, not to the land for our children. No permit can legitimize and no law can empower anyone to destroy nature in this way. Chief Seattle’s sentiment was rightswe are treating the land as an enemy, and it must not continue.
Jerald L. Schnoor, Editor*
[email protected]
10.1021/es1036018
2010 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 11/29/2010
