The Evils of Mountaintop Removal
by Throughout Appalachia, but especially in the states of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, the process of mountaintop removal has destroyed the natural beauty that is such an essential element of that exquisite region. Although defended by some as economically necessary, removal is in fact a destruction of all that native residents should hold dear.
Even more significantly, the destruction of mountains has left many local communities endangered by the destabilization of the local environment, to say nothing of the damage to local roadways done by massive coal trucks. Frequently, local communities are torn apart by divisive arguments about whether mountaintop removal has a positive or negative influence on the local community. Furthermore, local areas are often negatively impacted by the damage to the environment, which can include contamination of the local water supply and damage of personal property.
Furthermore, mountaintop removal is frequently incredibly damaging to the environment, entailing as it does the almost total disruption of local ecosystems for prolonged periods of time. As noted above, aquatic ecosystems suffer not only the influx of unnaturally intense amounts of minerals but can also be blocked or destroyed by the debris left over after the coal seam has been extracted. Furthermore, some of the first species to begin to grow on a denuded mountain are frequently scrub grasses, which often do not provide enough root strength to prevent serious erosion, to say nothing of the serious impact a lack of trees inflicts on the local ecosystem. Thus biodiversity, on both land and in water, is severely damaged, often beyond repair.
Although it is touted as the only option for removing narrow seams of coal, the risks and damage involved with mountaintop removal clearly make it an unviable option. Even if the claim is true, the cost of the damage, in both monetary and community terms, makes it far too expensive to be truly valuable. What is more, mountaintop removal mining usually utilizes fewer workers than traditional mining methods, further diminishing its supposed value to the economy of the states in which it occurs. Although it has yet to be banned legislatively in any state, one can hope that it will be banned sometime soon.
*My thanks to the Wikipedia, which provided valuable information for this article.
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