Mountain Top Removal Webquest

1. What is mountaintop removal?

Methods of surface coal mining that removes a mountaintop or ridgeline, whether or not the mined area will be returned to its approximate original contour. 2. How does each of the following affect the environment? Clearing-Topsoil and vegetation must be removed. Trees are burned or illegally dumped into valley fills Blasting-Removal of 600 feet or more of elevation Digging-Coal and debris removed using draglines, earth-moving machines. Dumping Waste- Debris is dumped into nearby valleys. Polluted 2,000 miles of headwater streams Processing-Creates coal slurry, sludge, coal dust and clay containing toxic chemicals. Reclamation-May take up to a hundred years for a forest to re-establish itself on the mine site.

3. Where is mountaintop removal happening?

It takes place in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwest Virginia and East Tennessee

4. What can be done to stop mountaintop removal?

Clean Water Protection Act would provide long-term fix that would be difficult for any presidential administration to change

5. What agencies are involved in regulating mountaintop removal?

President's Council on Environmental Quality, EPA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

6. What is one reason why we dont need to use this type of process?
Mountaintop removal mining provides less than 4.5 percent of our electricity.

7. Summarize the economic impacts of mountaintop removal

Mountaintop removal lowers the coal companies' overhead cost. It causes fewer jobs for coal mining, but has increased coal production dramatically. It creates barriers to economic development as well and diversification making areas less attractive for other industries. Places that have coal mining show high rates of economic distress in proportion to the amount of mining that occurs there.

8. Summarize the ecological impacts of mountaintop removal

Pollution of nearly 2,000 miles of headwater streams. It demonstrates significant increases in conductivity and hardness as well as sulfate concentrations. Mountaintop removal would be responsible for 1.2 million acres of forest elimination. When topsoil is removed, the land is incapable of restoring native hardwood forest habitat. Fish species are also threatened by mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal is eradication forests integral to fish survival.

9. How does mountaintop removal affect the local community?

Causes increased mortality due to diabetes, heart disease and cancer contaminates drinking water and also causes fly rock, which is when communities are blanketed in dust and rocks of all sizes. Mountaintop removal causes powerful flash floods.