Mountaintop removal irreversible: well, duh!
January 8th, 2010A new study published titled “Mountaintop Mining Consequences” published in the journal Science should put a final end to the myth of “clean coal”:
“Mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for the losses.”
Photo: Charles Pezeshki
The quote is from an article by Ken Ward Jr. in the Charleston (WV) Gazette.
A press release explains:
In their paper, the authors outline severe environmental degradation taking place at mining sites and downstream. The practice destroys extensive tracts of deciduous forests and buries small streams that play essential roles in the overall health of entire watersheds. Waterborne contaminants enter streams that remain below valley fills and can be transported great distances into larger bodies of water.
The paper calls on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Army Corps of Engineers to stay all new mountaintop removal mining permits unless new mining and reclamation techniques “can be subjected to rigorous peer review and shown to remedy these problems.”
That will never happen. The only rational response: No more coal.