Environmental Effects of Coal Mining in West Virginia
The Appalachian region is filled with coal mines and untouched coal. This is mainly focused in Southern Appalachia, especially in West Virginia. Coal mining has been going on for decades now and while it is declining, the effects will forever affect the environment surrounding the mines. I will be looking at, how has current and previous coal mining affected the environment and land in southern West Virginia today? There are many ways to get coal out of the earth and they all have detrimental effects, but the one that has had the most attention on the environment affects is mountain top removal.
The EPA defines mountain top removal as, “removing parts or all of mountaintops to expose buried seams of coal” (“Basic Information about Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia”). West Virginia is one of the only states where the whole state is considered to be a part of the Appalachian region. When people think of the Appalachian region they tend the imagine West Virginia. Appalachia is home to the oldest and most biologically diverse mountain systems in the United States. Mountain top removal has destroyed nearly 500 mountains in the Appalachian region (“Ecological Impacts of Mountaintop Removal”). This means that any little change to the environment can have a large impact on many different species of plants and animals. Coal mining and mountain top removal is something that has directly impacted many parts of the environment. Rocky Hackworth manages a 1,600 acre mine that is located south of Charleston West Virginia. In an interview he said, “This is a state where the thick, deep layers, or seams, of seal are all but gone after 200 years of relentless underground mining” (O’Brien).
By removing the tops of mountains there are many immediate effects of the removal. The rivers and water located near them is one of the biggest problems that follow mountain top removal. Intermittent and perennial streams located on those mountains are permanently lost. With the rivers that are left, chemical levels in the water begin to rise as they go downstream. Selenium, a chemical that is known to be toxic to birds and fish, has begun to rise in the rivers in southern West Virginia. This is causing many animals that rely on those rivers to either die or become mutated from the toxins (“Basic Information about Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia”). Emily Bernhardt, a biogeochemistry professor at Duke University, is doing research in the southern West Virginia region. She has found that for about every meter of coal in the earth there is about 99 meters of rock that you must move. Most of that rock is relocated to valley rivers. She also states in an interview, “…the water coming out of these mines is salty. Its full of rock-derived salts, and by itself is stressful to many freshwater organisms. And the sort of subsidiary problem is that that salt contains lots of elevated levels of trace metals, which have known toxicity to organisms” (O’Brien).
My family has two coal mines located in Core West Virginia, located about 30 minutes from Morgantown. The land we have has coals mines, 500 acres of timber, natural gas and in the 90’s there were oil derricks. Today, the only thing being done on the land is cutting down the trees for timber. The mines have not been touched in the last 5 years because the sulfur level is too high for commercial sales. When they were being mined they were deep shaft mines. This means they were mined by digging tunnels into the mountain and through the seams of coal. Many mines surrounding my families mined the same way they did and not only on the property. In sections vegetation has begun to grow back, but it will never be the same as it was before they began the digging. Once mines run out of coal or the coal is not valuable anymore many people think that’s the end of the mine, but that’s not the case. THe fossil fuel, natural gas, is left in those mines. We have natural gas in both mines, but are currently not drilling for it because we want the value to be the highest. There will most likely always be a reason to exploit that land whether it includes digging into the land more or expanding the acreage for the timber.
Coal mining has an effect on almost everything that surrounds it. The environment will never come back from what it used to be because of coal mining. It is not only ruining the water in streams and rivers it is also killing animals. The prevalence of coal mining has decreased, but it is still happening, meaning that things will just get worse for the environment. Deep shaft mining allows for vegetation to grow later because it is not completely stripping the land. However, mountaintop mining completely strips the land and afterwards the soil is not capable to allow plants to grow again. With the 500 mountain tops removed, the earth is forever changed for the worst. I have added a link at the bottom of this page to a YouTube playlist on the environmental effects of coal mining. These videos are focused around how coal mining works and what effects it has on the environment around it.
Bibliography:
“Ecological Impacts of Mountaintop Removal.” Appalachian Voices, appvoices.org/end-mountaintop-removal/ecology/.
O’Brien, Miles. “How Mountaintop Mining Affects Life and Landscape in West Virginia.” Scientific American, 5 May 2017, www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-mountaintop-mining-affects-life-and-landscape-in-west-virginia/.
“Basic Information about Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 6 Oct. 2016, www.epa.gov/sc-mining/basic-information-about-surface-coal-mining-appalachia#impacts.
Schiffman, Richard. “A Troubling Look at the Human Toll of Mountaintop Removal Mining.” Yale E360, 17 Nov. 2017, e360.yale.edu/features/a-troubling-look-at-the-human-toll-of-mountaintop-removal-mining.
West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey (WVGES) Welcome Page, www.wvgs.wvnet.edu/GIS/CBMP/all_mining.html.
