Scientists Urge U.S. Government to Ban Mountaintop Mining

Many environmentalists and coal-country residents have been saying for years that mountaintop mining must be stopped, and now scientists have reached the same conclusion. According to a new study, mountaintop mining (also called mountaintop removal mining) should be banned immediately for causing severe and lasting damage to the environment and exposing people to serious health risks, ranging from lung cancer to birth defects.

A team of 12 scientists, hydrologists and engineers conducted the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage done by mountaintop mining, a controversial form of surface mining that literally blows the tops off mountains to expose underlying veins of coal. Their findings, published in the journal Science, surprised the research team and moved its members to urge the federal government to stop issuing permits for mountaintop mining.

"Scientists are not usually that comfortable coming out with policy recommendations, but this time the results were overwhelming," said Margaret Palmer, an ecologist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, who led the study, "The reason we're willing to make a policy recommendation is that the evidence is so clear-cut."

What is Mountaintop Mining?

In mountaintop mining, coal companies clear-cut miles of ancient hardwood forests and understory growth from the top of a mountain, destroying wildlife habitat and nesting sites for native and migratory birds. Next, the companies use powerful explosives to blast through rock and reduce the elevation of the mountain by hundreds of feet, leaving the mountain vulnerable to flooding and erosion, and dump millions of tons of rock and rubble into adjacent valleys where it buries streams, destroys more habitat and contaminates wells and other drinking water supplies with heavy metals and toxic chemicals.

Research Shows the Damage Done by Mountaintop Mining?

The researchers discovered that as many as 500 mountaintops in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky have already been destroyed and turned into barren plateaus while 1,200 streams have been buried beneath tons of rock and dirt from mountaintop mines. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, mountaintop mining has already destroyed 2,040 square miles of land and 2,000 miles of mountain streams in Appalachia. Even so, just days ago the EPA cleared the way for two new mountaintop mining operations in West Virginia, a decision that outraged environmentalists, despite the agency's efforts to reduce stream impacts by 50 percent.

The study found environmental degradation, including forest and river system disruption, not only adjacent to mountaintop mines but also far downstream from the mining sites. Worse, the researchers concluded there was virtually no chance of restoring the damaged mountains, forests and streams after the coal companies have gone, as called for by the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.

One of the most troubling of the research team's findings was that up to 60 percent of young fish in heavily mined counties were deformed due to high concentrations of selenium caused by the same mining debris that is spilling into nearby wells and drinking water supplies. Fish caught in some West Virginia rivers had selenium concentrations twice that of fish other states had declared unfit for human consumption.

Mountaintop Mining Poses Serious Risks to Human Health

In an interview with The Guardian, Denny Lemly, a biologist at Wake Forest University and one of the authors of the study, said the high selenium concentrations and the damage already done to fish populations in the areas studied posed a serious health risk to humans and meant that the fish might soon be wiped out.

"The deformed young fish - that is really the red flag," Lemly said. "You can see right away that you are over a serious threshold."

The researchers also reported significant dangers to human health, including lung cancer; serious respiratory problems; chronic heart and kidney disease; and birth defects.

Michael Hendryx, a community medicine professor at the University of West Virginia, told The Guardian: "I think it is very clear. It is very compelling, and it would be a disservice to the people who live there to say we just have to study it more. The monetary costs of the industry, in terms of premature mortality and other impacts, far outweighs any benefits."

Final Thoughts

Coal is both a blessing and a curse for the United States and the planet. Coal is plentiful--far more plentiful than petroleum, for example--and coal-fired power plants currently supply about half of the electricity used by the United States. At the same time, burning coal contributes 36.5 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions, a greenhouse gas that is partly responsible for global warming, as well as a significant percentage of other pollutants.

Despite some of the drawbacks of burning coal, for the time being at least we need coal--although we also need cleaner ways to use it--but we don't need mountaintop mining.

Also Read:

• What is Mountaintop Mining?
• EPA Stops Largest Mountaintop Mining Operation in Appalachia
• Obama Administration Fails to Stop Mountaintop Removal, Promises More Oversight