Mountaintop removal mining (MTR)

Summary: Mountaintop removal mining, a type of surface coal mining, is practiced in Appalachian coalfields and has become controversial with regard to environmental and health issues.

Mountaintop removal mining (MTR) is a form of surface coal mining that was developed in the United States in the late 1960s. It is practiced in the Appalachian coalfields of the states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. The major companies involved are Arch Coal, Massey Energy, and National Coal Corporation. Since the start of the twenty-first century, MTR has become a heated political issue, resulting in the delay, review, and denial of several mining permits by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Central issues in this debate include the energy independence of the United States, rising greenhouse gas emissions, water and air pollution, loss of biodiversity, and damage to human health.

New Technologies After

In the United States, surface coal mining increased dramatically following World War II. With the help of new technologies, particularly large steam shovels and earth-moving machinery, surface mining came to be more productive and cost-effective than traditional underground mining. By 1970, strip mining (another name for surface mining) generated 40 percent of all the coal mined in the United States. According to the World Coal Association, surface mining has outpaced underground mining because it recovers a much higher proportion of the available coal. Mountaintop removal mining is a specific type of surface coal mining.

Mountaintop removal mining was first practiced in the late 1960s in Kentucky and West Virginia. Contour strip miners began dynamiting and bulldozing the tops of mountains to reveal the coal seams beneath, then pushed the soil and rock over the side. The oil crises of 1973 and 1979 stimulated the growth of the practice. With the advent of new and more efficient technology such as the Big John dragline—which moved 65 to 75 cubic yards of earth at one time—the practice increased in popularity throughout the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia. Since the 1990s, mountaintop removal mining began in western Virginia and certain areas in eastern Tennessee.

There are five steps to MTR. First, miners dynamite the rock and dirt overlaying the coal seams, referred to as overburden. Second, the top layers of the coal seam are removed, and the waste is placed in an adjacent valley, in what is known as a valley fill. Third, the lower layers of coal are excavated with draglines, and the waste is placed in what is termed a spoil pile. Fourth, regrading begins as coal excavation continues. Fifth, at the end of the extraction process, the area is regraded and revegetated. This last step is known as remediation.

Regulation and Opposition

Mountaintop removal mining is regulated by the Clean Water Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA). The Clean Water Act is used to regulate the runoff from MTR operations. SMCRA comprises two programs: one that regulates active coal mines and a second that reclaims mine lands abandoned after 1977. These programs are pursued by the Office of Surface Mining within the Department of the Interior. The passage of SMCRA was a direct response to concerns about surface mining and the inconsistency of state regulations.

Since its inception, MTR has occasioned protest from residents of Appalachia, environmental activists, unionized miners, and scientists. These opponents have stressed the damage that MTR causes to property values, the health of humans and ecosystems, and employment, as well as the negligence of mine operators regarding their responsibilities to rehabilitate and revegetate the land.

Opposition to mountaintop removal mining has its roots in the opposition mounted by Appalachian communities to surface-mining operations beginning in the 1960s. Grassroots responses to the destruction of local environments focused on the detrimental effect that surface mining had on property values, as well as the inefficacy of state and federal regulations. Often, these responses were confrontational and violent. In Kentucky during the 1960s, the Appalachian Group to Save the Land and People blocked mining bulldozers with their bodies and firearms, and anonymous saboteurs blew up expensive equipment at multiple mining sites throughout Kentucky and West Virginia. Groups such as the Citizens’ League to Protect Surface Rights (1970) sought adequate compensation for home owners and landowners whose property had been destroyed by mining operations.

When MTR began, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) supported state-by-state regulation of the practice. At this early stage, the union was responsive to member concerns about the conservation of natural resources and the condition of working and living environments. The union also believed that MTR had a negative effect on coal-mining jobs. Because MTR relies heavily on large machinery, its increase has corresponded to a rise in unemployment among coal workers. The UMW became a stronger opponent of MTR in 1971, when it supported federal legislation to control coal surface mining. However, by 1976, a year prior to the passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, the UMW came out in support of MTR, arguing that mine workers’ jobs took precedence over protecting the environment. The UMW became a vocal opponent of the EPA’s denial of permits. Despite the fact that many MTR workers are prevented from unionizing, UMW president Cecil Roberts argued in a 2008 letter to union members that the union is not interested in where or how coal is mined, but rather in the protection of mining jobs.

A wide range of national and local environmental groups oppose MTR, including the Rain Forest Action Network, Earthjustice, the National Resources Defense Council, Coal River Mountain Watch, Mountain Justice Summer, and the Sierra Club. These organizations have pursued a diverse range of tactics to stop MTR—from pressuring banks and universities to divest from coal companies to conducting sit-ins, organizing rallies and pickets, petitioning the EPA to ban the practice and to deny individual mining permits, and lobbying the federal government. The visibility and frequency of these protests have increased significantly.

A diverse group of scientists has criticized the negative effects of MTR on the health of humans and ecosystems. Scientific opponents share the argument of grassroots opponents that MTR operators have failed to remediate MTR sites properly. They also criticize the EPA for failing to enforce existing regulations regarding remediation. Other scientists, such as scientist James Hansen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, argue that MTR is facilitating the increase in greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

A peer-reviewed study in the January 2010 issue of Science, which surveyed existing studies of the effects of MTR, concluded that mitigation practices, which focus largely on erosion control rather than reforestation, do not successfully address the environmental damage caused by the practice. The study’s authors argued that MTR results in the burial of biodiverse streams and the permanent loss of ecosystems. The defoliation, removal of topsoil, and soil compaction caused by MTR increase the likelihood and severity of seasonal downstream flooding. The toxic by-products of MTR, sulfate in particular, contribute to the decline of stream biodiversity. Moreover, human health is negatively impacted by the persistence of mine-related chemical runoff found in groundwater supplies, fish populations, and airborne dust. In counties where MTR is practiced, there are significantly elevated rates of adult hospitalization for chronic pulmonary disorders, hypertension, lung cancer, and chronic heart, lung, and kidney diseases, as well as clusters of children with abnormally high levels of asthma and various allergies.

Supporters

Supporters of MTR include the World Coal Association, Friends of Coal, the West Virginia Coal Association, and the National Mining Association. These organizations believe that MTR is central to the continued energy independence of the United States. Furthermore, they argue that MTR causes minimal environmental damage and that abandoned mine sites provide locations for new schools, hospitals, and shopping centers, thus promoting local economic development. Supporters have argued that the practice should be rebranded as “mountaintop development” in order to emphasize the positive effects that MTR has for local economies.

Spruce No. 1 Mine

The EPA has concluded that MTR causes a series of environmental issues, including an increase in mineral concentrations in streams, the burial of streams, the fragmentation of forests, and the interruption of native species. Under the administration of President Barack Obama, the EPA began to review more rigorously valley fill permit applications that came before the Army Corps of Engineers.

Researchers note that the impact of MTR on geomorphic processes, such as erosion, are not well understood. Studies of areas to be mined would be necessary and still might not be able to accurately predict the impact of MTR and the requirements of remediation.

In January 2011, the EPA revoked the water permit for the Arch Coal Company’s Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County, West Virginia. The mine, which had been issued a water permit by the EPA in 2007 under the administration of President George W. Bush, would have involved blasting the tops off mountains over an area of 2,278 acres and burying more than 7 miles of stream with overburden. The EPA argued that the disposal of mining waste in area streams would cause unacceptable damage to rivers, wildlife, and communities. This decision marks the first time that the EPA has revoked a valid clean water permit for a coal mine.

The resulting furor over the EPA’s decision has illustrated many of the tensions at the heart of the debate over MTR. Coal companies and lobbying organizations insisted that the revocation of the permit would endanger jobs and economic growth, as well as shake the security of investment in coal-mining operations. Environmentalists, West Virginia residents, and many scientists applauded the decision for embracing sound science and protecting the health of Logan County’s residents and ecology.

Bibliography

Montrie, Chad. “Expedient Environmentalism: Opposition to Coal Surface Mining in Appalachia and the United Mine Workers of America, 1945–1975.” Environmental History 5, no. 1 (January 2000).

Montrie, Chad. To Save the Land and People: A History of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

"Mountaintop Mining Research." US Environmental Protection Agency, 25 Oct. 2023, www.epa.gov/water-research/mountaintop-mining-research. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.

Palmer, M. A., et al. “Mountaintop Mining Consequences.” Science 327, no. 5962 (January 8, 2010). www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5962/148.full.

Shobe, Charles M., Samuel J. Bower, Aaron E. Maxwell, Rachel C. Glade, and Nacere M. Samassi. "The Uncertain Future of Mountaintop-Removal-Mined Landscapes 1: How Mining Changes Erosion Processes and Variables." Geomorphology, vol. 445, 2024, doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2023.108984. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.