About 60 people gathered at the Winter Sun Hall on Thursday evening for a presentation and public discussion on the environmental impact and health effects of mountaintop removal mining. Following a potluck on the Dogtown Roadhouse porch, local organizer Theresa Gigante greeted attendees and thanked local businesses who made donations in support of the event.
Seven guest panelists representing citizen action groups, including Mountain Justice, Climate Ground Zero, and The Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards explained the practice of strip mining, a technique that began in the 1970’s that uses explosives and large earth moving machinery to extract coal from the ground. Mountaintop removal is a form of strip mining in which the summits of mountains are blown off in order to expose underlying coal seams for extraction. The rubble (overburden) that results is dumped into nearby valleys, covering up head water streams and river systems and drying up wells. Toxic mining byproducts from mountaintop removal and coal processing have poisoned nearby drinking water. Airborne toxins and dust associated with the practice are also a health problem.
A slide show presentation shown at the event outlined strip mining and mountaintop removal operations that have impacted thousands of acres of Appalachian Mountains. A map showed the direct relationship between mining sites and our region’s source of electricity. Panelists shared the work their groups are doing to bring attention to the issue, which includes legislative work, picketing and protesting, non-violent acts of civil disobedience, building coalitions, supporting impacted communities and assisting them to develop economies that don’t rely on jobs from the coal indus...
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...mining coming in and companies driving unions into the ground,” said Roanoke panelist Jasper Conner, a member of the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards.
More publicity, developing alternative energy sources, and changing the climate of government were some of the suggestions raised. Attendees were invited to participate in a mobilization effort to abolish mountaintop removal mining, organized by Appalachia Rising (appalachiarising.org). The weekend of actions will take place in Washington D.C. on September 25 –27. “What does solidarity from Floyd look like?” a panel member asked. “We have resources. We can help you organize. We can get you a bus,” she offered.
“I think it’s pathetic that we can’t fish out of our streams,” said Sid Moye, Wendy Johnston’s father. “I can’t believe I spent 41 years doing nothing about this,” Johnston concluded.
In the video “Fracking Hell: The Untold Story” by Link TV explains how natural gas has been a huge problem not only for the earth in general but for everyone and everything living in it. The video explains how North East of Pennsylvania is having difficulties to conserve a healthy environment and people. North East of Pennsylvania is the main sources to extract gas and send it throughout the United States for gasoline and so on. However, this action is wonderful for the cost of gas, but has a huge impact on the environment and the people living in Pennsylvania. A lot of people in this state are worried having health issues because everything is not usable is being thrown out to the rivers where they get their fresh water.
... tragedy. Governor Green was a great deal of letters from the miners and union asking in this quote “ plea to you, to please save our lives, to please make the department of mines and minerals enforce the laws at the No.5. “ The miners felt if there was no action taken there might be a disaster in the future.
organizations such as The Sierra Club, Friends of Earth and the Earth Island Institute fought
In the film, Matewan, director John Sayles paints a 1920’s picture of a small, West Virginia coal-mining town. Over the course of the film, this seemingly American Township reveals itself as the site of feudal hardship for its citizens. The Stone Mountain Coal Company was the sole employer in Matewan. The company’s laborers struggled for autonomy and for freedom from the company’s grasp. The ideal method for this achieving such autonomy was organization of a union. This idea of union struck a cord with the company, and the conflict between employer and employee soon escalated into a battle. The laborers began to realize, in certain terms, that the Stone Mountain Coal Company is not simply a corporation but a feudal power. These townspeople were living in a capitalist country, but they were controlled by a feudal enterprise in Matewan, West Virginia. The coal mining business built a town that was then forced to rely on that company through monopoly control, bondage contract, and the organization of their production. Thus, the Stone Mountain Coal Company created a feudal monopoly over the town. The business had dominant control over all aspects of their laborer’s lives.
The documentary ‘Gasland” is a telling tale of the terrible consequences of natural gas mining in the US. The filmmaker, Josh Fox, travels around the country visiting different homes that are in very close proximity of natural gas drilling sites after receiving a $100,000 offer from a natural gas company to use his land as a drilling site . The film focuses on how the drilling sites not only leave ugly scars on the land, but also the horrendous health problems people get from drinking the contaminated groundwater.
West Virginia and Kentucky have been faced with a rise in health-related issues, leading the nation in cancer-related deaths. Many of those cases have been said to be caused from greater exposer to pollution from coal-mining activity, which is said to increase your chances for cancer along with other fatal diseases. The Appalachia area has seen a rise in mortality rates, over 60,000 cases of those being cancer-related deaths directly linked to mountaintop removal practices. Mountaintop removal has been deemed as cleaner and safer than men going below ground to mine for coal, but with Appalachian communities- primarily in West Virginia, Kentucky and Southwestern Virginia seeing a high rise in cancer, cardiovascular disease, and birth defects rates, mountaintop removal has been looked at as one of the main causes.
In order to find the benefits and hazards of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia, I used the various resources and gathered information from both sides of the questions posed, including economical benefits such as earnings, and environmental hazards such as ongoing experiments to clean up acid mine drainage. And some opinions written and expressed in newspaper articles and magazines.
Protestors at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which straddles North and South Dakota, are actively using methods of civil disobedience to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline. For example, recently over 70 protestors were arrested for camping on private property to protest the pipeline, which they argue will threaten the water supply used by the reservation and damage sacred grounds. Police have arrested many other Standing Rock activists on charges of criminal trespassing for setting up camps in illegal areas. Protestors at Standing Rock have been using these methods of peaceful resistance to prevent the company working on the project, Energy Transfer Partners, from disrespecting Native American lands and threating the safety of many people. Like those involved with civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement, activists at Standing Rock have been working to secure freedom to Americans whose liberties are
Mountain Top Removal is an American tragedy, the process in which mining companies remove forests and topsoil then explode the mountain apart level by level to get to coal layer. It is estimated that the explosives are equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb. A lot of the mining waste is discarded into valleys and streams; the water runoff is high in silt, ion, and sulfur compounds, which in turn pollute water downstream. Even with chemical treatments, vegetation has a hard time growing on the infertile and highly acidic soil. Mountain top removal occurs in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee. Virtually 1.2 million acres of land has been surface mined and more than 500 mountains have been ruined by mountaintop removal mining.
While 2001 has proven to be a year of fear, anger, uncertainty and terrible destruction, the years between 1893 and 1904 were equally chaotic for the small mining town of Cripple Creek, Colorado. Tensions began to grow between mining companies and workers over their long hours and low wages. In response, John Calderwood, a former coal miner, established the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) in 1894. Calderwood and five hundred men formed a union in February of that same year. Their demands were simple: three dollars' pay for an eight-hour day. The conflict went on with neither side willing to compromise. Non-union workers and union workers competed for jobs as companies refused t...
The Indians, who had fought tirelessly with the colonial masters, now found themselves in a different type of fight with the big energy companies and the United States government; a corporate fight which involved court battles, anti-permit hearings, and so on. LaDuke points out that Native Action, a grass root environmental justice organization, has been the saving grace of the North Cheyenne people. Led by Gail Small, Native Action has represented the Indians despite tough oppositions and has the unique advantage of understanding the community’s problem from inside, being Indians themselves who share the same heritage (LaDuke 1999,
Throughout this mining process a byproduct is created called chat. The chat is leftover rock and waste from mining that did not contained the desired materials. The chat was left on the site because the Bureau of Indian Affairs thought it could be of value to the Quapaw tribe (1). This chat contained high levels of toxic lead and other harmful chemicals. It is estimated that there are 75 Million tons (150 billion pounds) of chat piles remaining exposed to the environment as well as numerous flotation ponds that haven’t been taken into account (4).
All levels of protection for the miners failed them. Every agency that was entrusted with their safety had other concerns as priority. Mr. Scanlan submitted true and honest reports of violations over a long period of time but never went that extra step to enforce the law. State authorities should have acted when the initial reports were made. The Union membership was at risk and yet the Union never represented Local 52 nor gave it support when it tried on its own to get state assistance with their grievances. Politics and profit motivated elected officials appointees and the coal company.
...y question, what good is a profession that destroys your home and your body? While environmental groups make the protection of people and the environment of the Appalachian region top priority, the mining companies focus on acting cheaply, not responsibly. And the policy government keeps their heads in the sand when it comes to this issue because they seek benefits of steady jobs and tax revenue of coal mining instead of seeking to guarantee clean water for Appalachians.
Mines pose a threat to the environment. They can degrade soil and water quality if left untreated. The United States Environmental protection Agency (USEPA)'s Region 9 assessment of state data states that there are approximately 420,000 abandoned mines in the states of California, Arizona, and Nevada with 13,242 of them being considered "abandoned mines with potential environmental hazard" (arizona.edu, 2008).