Mountain Top Removal

Regardless of the negative affects mountaintop removal mining is causing, what kind of people are the perpetrators behind this method? As one example, there is a coal mining company called Massey Energy based in Central Appalachia which provides a fair sum of the nation’s coal reserves (“About Us”). Through their mountaintop mining exploits, they cause widespread damage to the environment around them. Evidence of this is

For years, the State of Nevada has found the Yucca Mountain project unacceptable because of the obvious logical and scientific issues that make the site itself unsafe. Additional support for their argument is that other than being far from the nuclear waste, the repository cannot really separate itself and its dangers from the environment and humans. Even though Nevada started with just being upset about the state having the political finger pointed at them to hold the whole nation’s nuclear waste but now their argument is stronger (Adams, 2010). Not only is Yucca Mountains’ size not big enough for the entire countries nuclear waste, but geologic factors could make the waste

Did you know that Idaho was recently ranked second in the nation for poor air quality? This problem can be attributed to pollution and other issues that continue to plague Idaho. Pollution is the entrance of foreign or harmful chemicals or other wastes into an environment. One of the main causes of pollution in Idaho is excessive smoke from burning leaves, firewood, and other substances. Water contaminants also contribute a great deal to pollution. Most contaminated water in Idaho is caused by mining. Deforestation is another issue in Idaho, and it is the loss of natural habitat by human developments, whether it be urban growth, mines, logging, or factories. All of these causes

Imagine drifting slowly on a canoe while fishing one of Minnesota's crystal clear waters on a beautiful, sunny day. Now imagine being interrupted by the loud, ongoing sounds of drilling and being told the fish were too dangerous to eat. This is only one of many potential harms of sulfide mining. PolyMet, a new mining company would like to bring sulfide mining, also known as copper-nickel mining to Minnesota. This would involve the extraction of copper and various other metals from sulfide, hence the name. The sulfide that comes out of this type of mining can have serious consequences on the environment. Events that occurred in the past and facts mentioned in the books titled Taconite Dreams by Jeffrey Manuel and Fractured Land by Lisa

With so many people mining for gold and trying to find as much as they can, new technology was invented to make the process easier and more efficient. Before this new gold-mining technology, many miners would dam up rivers to make their findings easier and supply water during dry months, or the rivers would become blocked with deposits and sediments, effectively changing the rivers for animals and plants. Along with that, the need for wood and lumber increased so the forest changed with more and more trees cut down to create canals. The land was essentially torn up just in the miner quest for gold. With the invention of hydraulic mining came one of the most disastrous effects on the state’s physical environment. Before workers would only dam up rivers, but with this machine, mountainsides and other areas were torn up,

The Buffalo Creek flood of West Virginia is believed to be the most devastating coal relate disaster in West Virginia history. The flood occurred in the Buffalo Creek area of Logan County on February 26, 1972 when three dams broke and released 132 million gallons of water and coal waste known by miners as “gob,” and is a thick sludge-like material. The gob contains many toxic chemicals and pollutants such as mercury and arsenic that are left behind from the coal mining process. The wastewater would lie in settling ponds and dams until it could be properly disposed of. The water that was left over from processing coal would be disposed of in two different ways. Some of the water would be pumped from the dam back to the “tipple”, otherwise

In Jan. 2011, the EPA decided to veto the dumping of waste from the Spruce No. 1 Mine. But the agency’s efforts have so far been rebuffed by the courts as an overreach: Under the weird legal regime that governs mining, it’s the Army Corps of Engineers, not the EPA, which has the ultimate say-so over those permits. In 2012, the D.C. district court ruled that EPA lacked authority to veto the permit after the Corps had issued it. However, in fact EPA's decision is based on evidence from scientific research on serious environmental harm from mining. In May 2013, a coalition of Appalachian and environmental groups petitioned the EPA to set a numeric water quality standard under the Clean Water Act to protect streams from pollution caused by mountaintop removal mining . They claimed that “State politics and industry pressure have so far failed to end this pollution without such a standard and more and more streams and communities who rely on those waters are left vulnerable. We need EPA to act now.” The EPA’s authority over the Clean Water Act in respect to Spruce Mine No. 1 was finally affirmed by the Supreme Court in March 2014.

(Erikson p. 25) The Buffalo Coal Company decided to stack this waste at the top of the mountains which after a while created a dam. This "sludge water" was dumped in nearby lakes which they stopped because this water would end up in the streams that lead to the town. They then disposed of the water behind the dam which held up to over 130 million gallons of waste. There was a non-stop rain plaguing this area throughout the whole month of February. This rain continued to fill this dam, and on February 26, 1972 that dam collapsed causing this valley to fill with slag water. Residents explained hearing explosions and it feeling like an earthquake as the flood began. In only a few hours most of Buffalo Creek had been washed away into the Guyandotte River. After most of the water left the scene could be described as something out of a war movie; wreckage, bodies lying everywhere. The Buffalo Creek government creates aid for survivors of this disaster by offering trailer homes and other relief processes. The book has a lot of witness accounts what it was like actually going through this. I found out that The Environmental Protection Agency was enacted in 1970 and by this time the Buffalo Mining Company had already been dumping their sludge and waste water

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

This paper will review past practices and policies relating to mountaintop coal mining, evaluate and analyze current research on the impact of coal mining on human health, and provide recommendations for further research guided by logic and in agreement with biblical truth.

The Wild West was a period of lawlessness of the untamed territories west of the Mississippi River in the mid to late 1800’s. Where it was filled with gangs, shootouts, native Indians, and most of all cowboys. In Sandra Steingraber’s When Cowboys Cry she is making comparison to the ranchers of Montana to cowboys, while comparing their situation to the Wild West. The ranchers in Montana are concerned about the hydrofracking that is going on, and that it’s damaging the environment all over the world. Hydrofracking is a method of pumping chemical-laced water into the ground causing natural gas and oil to rise below groundwater reservoir level. Which is causing springs to stop flowing and contaminating water sources with the chemicals

The Appalachian Mountains spans from the state of Georgia all the way through the maritime within the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Eastern portions of Quebec. The land is primarily made up of sedimentary rock that was lifted up and folded, because of the collision of North America with Europe and northern Africa during the formation of Pangaea, creating mountains. These sheets of sedimentary rock are wealthy in non-metallic minerals such as coal. In addition, volcanic action and faulting formed igneous and metamorphic rock in specific space in the Appalachians. Plateaus made of this rock carry metallic material, because of this such as iron and zinc. Many land forms that may located here are

Coal mining, in particular, strip mining has become the latest casualty of the growing green movement in the United States. What is strip mining? Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines strip mining as the removal of vegetation, soil, and rock above a layer of coal, followed by the removal of the coal itself (“strip”). Most Americans don’t realize the impact this material of biological origin that can be used as a source of energy (“fossil”), or fossil fuel, has on their everyday lives or the nation’s economy. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the mining industry directly employs some fifty thousand Americans with nearly half that number working in the more specific field of strip mining, or mountain top removal

When writing a research paper on Pebble Mining in Alaska, the sources you use information from can make or break your paper. Therefore it’s very important to review and choose sources wisely. Learning what sources to use for a research paper is critical. Different sources produce different information some are useful to your paper, but the wrong source can ruin everything. You want to look for sources that are credible and reliable. You also want to look for sources that are peer reviewed and scholarly. Stay away from sources that seem biased, and don’t have facts to back up the statements. Good places to look are government websites, online magazines, or newspapers. If the source is published look for who published it, and when it was published.

The mining industry has seen an explosive growth from the past few decades. It has played an important role in economic growth, infrastructure development and a raise in the living standard of the whole world. According to the Australian National Accounting System, the mining sector has made contributions of 9.8% GDP growth to the Australian economy between 2008 to 2009 (Australia Bureau of Statistics, 2012). However, the mining industry has caused many environmental issues such as adverse effect to air, land and water quality and continues to affect global environment as a whole. According to the World Health Organization, it evaluated that 25% of worldwide death are directly associated with environmental pollution (Blacksmith Institute, n.d). This essay will outline the environmental issue raised by the mining industry with pinpoint focus on the effects to air, water and land. It will also provide strategies for mining companies to improve the environmental conditions.