Essay

Christina Overton
March 4, 2009
Houp
English 1020:
Research and Argumentative Writing

Mountaintop Removal:
The Damage

Mountain top removal mining, or MTR is an extreme form of mining that devastates the earth and causes a dramatic change to the summit of the mountain. This change not only deforms the land into a piece of essentially useless wastelands, but it also causes many changes and hardships for everything in its wake, leaving behind an ugly, gnarled cemetery where a mountain once stood proudly. This process of coal removal is an invasive method, in which the companies in charge of this project find this method easier than drilling holes into the side of the mountain as previously conducted. Now its just easier to remove the unwanted soil, trees, rocks, and wildlife from the area and get right to work after all the unnecessary wastes have been removed. But the coal companies don’t care what happens to anything other than the coal that they mine, not the people that are left to suffer as a result of the damages that they incur as a result of the damages that the coal companies cause; the wildlife is forced to leave the area because the companies strip the area of trees to make the workplace more easily accessible for their machines and workers.
The area left behind by these coal mining companies are barren and desolate. The companies are only there to make the money they need, so returning the land to how it was before they came would only be a loss of profits to actually do some good. And what respectable company would ever waste their money on fixing what they messed up if they could get out of it? Now this land is left to be sold for anyone that wants to build on it and try and make it a more friendly environment for the community. This means they want Walmarts and shopping centers to be built here and “reclaim the land”, land out in the middle of where a great mountain once stood, where the wildlife has been pushed from the area, where those who live in the area are there to escape from the noise and be out where they are surrounded by beauty. Is the desolate land, now topped by Walmarts their idea of beauty? No, they are destroying the natural beauty of the mountains and the land by using such destructive tactics of coal removal.
People are really starting to protest the acts of these companies that use mountaintop removal mining, in recent news in Kentucky there was a protest against these companies in support of a bill that would limit there the coal companies could dump the left over rubble from the way they mine for the coal. This has had a great turn out, bringing in all kinds of people, from students from the University of Kentucky, to toddlers, to a 96-year-old woman. Everyone came out to celebrate “I Love Mountains Day”. This was a rally to help promote the bill that limited the areas that coal companies could dump wastes.

“In mountaintop removal mining, the tops and sides of mountains are blasted off to get at the underlying coal seams. Often times the rubble, otherwise known as “overburden,” is dumped into nearby waterways, mountaintop removal opponents say.” (kykernel).

Because of the actions of the coal companies, more than 430 miles of streams in Kentucky have been buried by the leftover rubble from mountaintop removal mining. While this bill will, unfortunately, not restrict coal companies from using this kind of mining, it will prevent them from dumping their wastes into the waterways, many of these Kentuckians chanted “Not one more mile” in an effort to show their support for this bill and in hopes that not one more mile of Kentucky streams will be blocked by the actions of the mountaintop removal mining. One speaker at this event spoke out about just how much has been lost, “We lost over 470 mountains in central Appalachia alone” (kykernel), that is an unthinkable, unacceptable amount of damage to the land and these coal companies are supposed to return these areas back to their ‘approximate original contour’, of which they rarely do.
The health of those in Appalachia are severely effected as a result of the coal companies actions. Erik Reece, an avid supporter of ending mountaintop removal mining, documented the changes to a mountain from October 2003 through November 2004 in his book, Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness. In this book he describes many of the ways that mountaintop removal mining has damaged the area around it; he talks extensively about the damages to the mountain, wildlife, and the people of Appalachia. Reece talked with a woman that lost her son because of mountaintop removal mining. Her son’s car was hit by a trucker that was driving under the influence of drugs, and whose truck was way over the weight limit, as to save time and money for the coal companies, but causing a danger to those also driving on the same roads being used by coal truck drivers. This trucker was not found responsible for the death of the son initially, he later admitted to his drug use and was later convicted, but the coal companies send out truckers two at a time, as an alibi if ever a lawsuit came up. Another account was by a woman named Blanton, who said to Reece that she wanted to bring her children to a “safe spot, but instead brought them back to a chemical wasteland” (Reece 46). These chemicals, as Reece describes in an article for the Orion Magazine, are from the sedimentation and dissolved minerals in the water, resulting from the mountaintop removal mining, and these can cause a variety of symptoms that effect everyone that comes in contact with it. A surprising number of children have had symptoms that were a result of the minerals in the water, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, shortness of breath, and even worse are the long term effects of these minerals. Reece talks about these, saying “Long-term effects may include liver, kidney, and spleen failure, bone damage, and cancers of the digestive track” (Orion Magazine). All of these are directly caused by the coal companies actions and through their dumping of wastes into the waterways and contaminating the water sources for those that live around the mountains.
One piece of good information that has come up in the news recently is posted by iLoveMountains.org, an advocate for ending mountaintop removal mining. They keep people that support this cause up to date with a reliable and uplifting blog that tells about the efforts that have been rewarded, as of March 4th, 2009 a greater effort has been extended by more people and by more congressmen. “On March 4th 2009, Congressmen Frank Pallone (D-NJ), John Yarmuth (D-KY), and Dave Reichert (R-WA) introduced H.R. 1310 with 117 original co-sponsors in the 111th Congress; that’s more than twice what it had at the beginning of last session!” (iLoveMountains.org) This is great news to those wanting to remove mountaintop removal mining from central Appalachia. The Clean Water Act was reintroduced on March 4th, 2009, this act was introduced to prevent the coal companies from dumping the waste and “excess spoil” into the waterways and making the water toxic to humans, plants, and animals. The fact that it has been reinstated is a great step forward for those against mountaintop removal mining.

Mountaintop removal mining must stop. The effects of the mining has proven to be far more damaging to everything that is around it, from the plant and animal life, to the human life that is being put in jeopardy from the tainted water and lives that have too soon been ended as a result of the coal companies actions. These companies have destroyed the landscape, and brought mountains to their knees. The once beautiful landscape of Appalachia has been deeply scarred by these companies and ripped away the culture and history of the people of Appalachia. Through efforts of those wanting to stop mountaintop removal mining, people across america have stepped up to speak their minds and rally against it to finally put an end to the destruction.












Works Cited

1. Reece, Erik. Lost Mountain. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.
2. ILoveMountains, "Now Congress Must Act" iLoveMountians.org 2009 5 Mar 2009 .
3. Erik Reece, "Moving Mountains." Orion Magazine January/February 2006, March 04, 2009 .
4. Wesley Yonts. "Students protest mountaintop removal mining." Kentucky Kernel 17 Feb 2009,