Why We Should Reclaim The Appalachian Mountain

Appalachia, a vast, beautiful panoply of lush green mountains. At least, most of the thin line of peaks that make up the Appalachian Mountains used to be that way. Currently, the continued spread of a method of coal extraction known as mountaintop removal mining has plagued areas of the eastern United States, mainly including the state of West Virginia. Throughout its increasing stages of implementation, mountaintop removal mining has caused numerous hampering effects, including causing serious harm to nearby residents, and polluting a once-pure environment. Because of this, mountaintop removal mining needs to be limited in order to preserve the natural state of the Appalachian Mountains.

For those seeking a secluded mountain home there would be none better than Appalachian Mountain real estate, as the starting point.

Burns, Shirley Stewart. Bringing Down the Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal Surface Coal Mining on Southern West Virginia Communities, 1970-2004. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2007. Print.

The Appalachians span over a distance of 1,600 miles, ranging across 14 states, from Newfoundland in the North, to Alabama in the South. The Appalachians are the oldest chain of mountains on the North American continent. With forest, comes forest fires, some natural and some prescribed by humans. In order to reduce the calamitous damage caused by natural wildfires, the technique of prescribed fires is used. This is done by diminishing the amounts of trees, shrubs, and brush in the intended area. By doing this, new native plant growth is encouraged and it helps maintain some plant and animal species that depend on the periodic fires. With this man made force comes numerous effects on vegetation, wildlife, and the human impact.

Many companies have made money from the coal industry; however, the money has not stayed within the state. Big businesses have exploited the resources creating rich executives and leaving the Appalachian area stripped of its bounty. Currently, big businesses are involved in mountain-top removal to remove resources from our mountains. This leaves many of the beautiful mountains destroyed, pollutes the water systems and kills the wildlife and vegetation. The coal industry which once supported many families in the Appalachian area is now becoming the downfall of our tourist

Are you for coal or against coal? Maybe better yet, are you for the preservation of the mountains and nature or are you against it? These questions held such a deep meaning and understanding that on the surface seemed immaterial to large corporations such as the Coal Mining Industry or political leaders within the State of West Virginia. Combating Mountaintop Removal by Bryan McNeil gives us the views of what it looks like from a grassroots environmental activist within the West Virginia coal country. In the book you see how the social and moral arguments are framed from different agents such as the Ant-MTRM (Mountain top removal) organization, the Coal Miners and Union works, to the Coal Mining Companies, and finally the State through political

6) Are there any protests, citizen groups or non-profits actively working to question the policies and practices of coal in society?

Surface mining began to replace traditional underground mining around WWII (Bozzi 116). Rather than digging into the mountain to extract the coal, strip mining involves removing the overlying soil and rock that covers the coal deposits (Lutz 1). It seemed appealing at first because the previous known dangers of black-lung disease and cave-ins were now limited with the surface mining method (Bozzi 116). However, surface mining came with it’s own problems, a lot of them being more serious and irreversible than underground mining (Allen 182). This method of surface mining was the spark that created the trend of mountaintop removal (Bozzi 117). Mountaintop removal is the complete destruction of the mountain peak in order to reach coal

Coal mining is not new to the Appalachian region. Miners have been working the rich coal fields of Appalachia for generations.14, 17 The first coal mines in these states were small, local owned operations.17 This all changed, however, in the late 19th century when “agents from land companies had swept through the region buying up mineral rights, sometimes for as little as fifty cents per acre, separating the use of the surface (and tax liability) from the natural resources that might be below.”17 In legal terms, and in very fine print, these “broad form deeds often signed over the rights to ‘dump, store, and leave upon such land any and

The citizens in Central Appalachia are amongst the poorest in the country even thought they live in an area that is environmentally diverse and full of natural resources such as coal, timber and agriculture. The author of the book looks at the coal history of her hometown West Virginia and examines the impact of mining and mountain top removal has had on the region. Appalachia’s poverty rate is twice as high as any other region in United States. The regions are primarily country and the people are largely white with majority of the locals having roots that have been tied to the lands for generations. Burns talks about how one of the biggest issues facing the area and the main reason why all the money being made is not going to the people of the land for all these years is coal.

The Appalachian Mountains are a mountain range in the eastern part of North America. The origin of the mountain ranges name came about when “Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his crew were exploring the Florida coast in 1528, they found a Native American town with a name they transliterated as Apalachen. The word ‘Apalachen’ was also applied to an inland mountain range, and through the course of time it became applied to the entire range and its spelling was changed” (“Appalachian Mountains”).

Have you ever thought about how your able to use a TV or lamp? There are people who have to work in mines or around dangerous machinery just so we can have that privilege. Thousands of miners and other people have been killed because of coal mining. Coal mining has brought some good thought taxes and jobs created. The most important effects of coal mining on the state of West Virginia are thousands of jobs being created, coal affecting West Virginia economically, and coal being used for energy.

The author identified two Appalachian crisis in this article. First, the author mentioned that many people in Appalachia places like eastern Kentucky lost nearly 70% of their coal jobs to mechanization (mountain removal strip mines). Also, the author argued that mountain removal causes the most deaths related to cancer and other diseases in central Appalachia.

Alaska is widely known for its vast untouched wilderness, abundant wildlife, and its coal. Sam Weis explains in “The Local and Worldwide Impacts of Mining Alaska’s Coal,” that Alaska is home to an estimated 5.5 trillion tons of coal, which is approximately one-eighth of all the coal on Earth (25). The energy that comes from burning coal is in great need not only in the United States, but also all over the world. According to Gail West, in his article titled Alaska’s Coal Clean Burning and Abundant,” “Japan, South Korea, and Chile are three primary markets for Alaska’s coal exports (113). This dire need for coal has led many people wanting to turn towards Alaska as a primary source of coal. There is just one problem; the coal and the

Western Virginia and the Appalachian Plateau have an abundance of coal in their land. Mostly it is from million year old decomposed plant materials that have created 76 distance coal beds; about half of these are currently being commercially mined. Two fifths of the coal produced in VA is exported out of state. The remaining coal is used to produce energy in local coal burning power plants. Locally sourced coal makes up a little bit over 37% percent of all of Virginia’s power (Sites, 2014).