Photographs of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

[rusty quoin]

Photojournalist Antrim Caskey documents "The War in Appalachia"
http://www.clipfile.org/antrim/

What you see is a wedge of mountaintop blast rock stuffed into a valley where a mountain once stood. The light green wedge, cut by a white line, is the "fill" in the "valley," thus valley fill.

When it rains, or waste water is disposed of from this MTR project, it flows through the valley fill, and then downstream. Coal is dirty. A veritable witches' brew of chemicals is used to clean it - and that dirty water goes into local waterways. Valley fills often bury the headwaters of mountain streams, thus contaminating and killing a local water source and micro-ecosystems that are vital to the life of a healthy forest.

As rain and coal waste water run-offs fall downstream, they take with them rocks, dirt and trees--all the debris from the blasting of mountaintops. Floodwaters become highly dangerous - like a dirty bomb - the water is punctuated with logs, boulders and toxic waste.

As the valleys rise and the mountains fall, West Virginia will be flattened.

Aerial view of southern West Virginia's decimated Appalachian mountains. This is the what coal mining looks like. (photo credit: Antrim Caskey. special thanks to Southwings for the fly-over.)

In the valleys below, the mountain people are being forced from their homes. Their drinking water smells like sulfur and is laden with toxic chemicals; bathing, cooking and drinking with this well water is to be avoided whenever possible. Their land and homes are being washed away in floods due to irresponsible mining. Schools are closing. Cancers, kidney, liver and respiratory problems have ravaged the communities that sit below the mountains being mined.

Statewide, sixteen mine workers have been killed so far this year. Gov. Joe Manchin, III, spoke to the press after three mining accidents in the state on Feb. 1, resulting in two deaths and one injury. He called for a statewide "safety stand down." Production was to be halted and safety inspections would start immediately Manchin promised. "We're not going to produce another lump of coal - we are going to correct the safety conditions," he said. To many, the "safety stand down" rings hollow; promises have been made before.

West Virginia produces 150 million tons of coal a year, second only to Wyoming, according to the West Virginia Coal Association (WVCA). Seventy percent comes from underground mining, while the rest comes from surface mining, which includes strip-mining, long-wall mining and mountaintop removal. One third of West Virginia's coal is shipped to 28 different countries around the world, according to Bill Raney, president of the WVCA, a powerful industry lobby.

The human costs of coal production are profound. The waste from coal mining and processing has poisoned the air and the ground water. I saw many people who had sores on their body from bathing in the poisoned water; anyone who can afford to buys all their drinking and cooking water, but most cannot. I felt like I was in a developing country brushing my teeth with bottled water.

It's just horrible what has been done, and there's always hope with better representation, but I was disappointed when I saw this, also at this site:

Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has given the American people a look at where he might take the country if he’s to go on to higher office. Many talk about Senator Obama as a new shining hope for the future. For Change. But, it looks like he’s on the same train as all the others.

Senator Obama recently cosponsored legislation introduced into the Senate to facilitate the building of a new generation of coal plants using the most dangerous method of coal liquefaction called Fischer-Tropsch method.

[Richard D]

1. Damn.

Senator Obama recently cosponsored legislation introduced into the Senate to facilitate the building of a new generation of coal plants using the most dangerous method of coal liquefaction called Fischer-Tropsch method.

Damn. I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

[mac2]

2. This is what globalism has done to this country

We are now 3rd world thanks to King Bush and his court of royal idiots.

I remember driving through this part of the country awe struck with it's beauty. Senator Byrd has to go since he fails to fight this rape.

"Mr. Shining Hope" is just that. A hope not a reality. No coal plant is clean.

Mark Twain once noted that no man's property is safe when Congress is in
session.

[demnan]

3. I remember strip mining back in the 70's

I went to college one year in a college in South Weatern Virginia where they were doing extensive strip mining. My roommate's father had died in a coal mining accident and her mother and mentally retarded brother and she lived in a trailor in Haysi, VA where the water was just like that.

It's unbelievable what these people live through. I do think they are the most repressed people in America. So did John Kennedy. But no one has paid them any attention since. If John Edwards had gone to West Virgnia he might still be in the race.

[Omaha Steve]

4. I have posted about mountain top several times

Just South of council Bluffs, Ia an entire bluff disappeared for fill projects. Very similar. A REPUBLICAN friend of mine lives near it and is pissed.

K&R!



http://www.nfinity.com/~exile/loesspg.htm#description

http://pubs.usgs.gov/info/loess/

[Snarkoleptic]

5. "Clean Coal" is a joke and worse yet, they have a big PR budget to promote their canard.

[rusty quoin]

7. That's right. I can't recall if it was RFK Jr., or

Mike Papantonio, who said it's like saying 'healthy cigarettes.'

[Birthmark]

6. No words.

None at all. :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[dmr]

8. Horribly heartwrenching

on so many levels. I can't think of the right words to articulate how devastating this is to me - to all of us - on so many effin' levels!

Thank you for posting this.

[intaglio]

9. Search "Sylvester" WV in Google Earth

and then zoom out a lttle :evilfrown: :scared:

[mac2]

10. Senators Rockefeller and Byrd should be ashamed they

failed to stop this. Remove them.

They have control in the Senate but do little. I makes me cry when I think of how beautiful this area once was. Those trees will never grow back on a mountain,rock surface. It is an enviornmental disaster.

What about the WV governor is he being bribed? Is this NAFTA rapping our resources?

[Petrushka]

11. You can find more info and photos re: Mountaintop Removal/Valley Fill Mining . . .

. . . at the following URL:

http://www.ohvec.org


BTW: If you purchase groceries at Kroger, check the OHVEC website for how you can help fight irresponsible mining by purchasing and using a Kroger gift card---especially important, now, when "Friends of Coal" is asking folks to boycott Kroger---because 5% of what you spend on groceries will be sent to OHVEC when you use the card.

[Nihil]

12. Kick for the mess created by uranium mining ...

... oh, wait ...


(PS: Thanks to whoever gave me the heart!)

[The2ndWheel]

13. A habitat or an economic system

We don't get both.