Mountain top removal

      Many people think mountaintop removal is such a horrible thing and just destroys the Appalachian Mountains. The thing is that it is very important to the state of West Virginia for many different reasons. Surface mining is much more efficient then underground mining. The job is much quicker and doesn’t cost as much money as an underground mine would. Since all the work is above ground and most of the jobs include haling the dirt and coal away, MTR is much safer than underground mining. The great need for truck drivers to haul coal and dirt away increases the amount of jobs that are needed and are available for the community. This is very important because we all know how dangerous coal mining has been in history. Another benefit for mountain top removal is that it creates flat land in mountainous areas that are prime for building on. This helps the economy out when we can build new business and communities on top of reclaim surfaces mining sites. This way the mountain has two advantages. Mountain top removal isn’t as bad as people think it is and can actually be very beneficial to everyone after it has been reclaimed.

lbj's coal formation blog

      Coal is formed when plant life is decayed in swamps 300 million years ago. When these plants died in the swamp they got buried underground with no oxygen and acidic/ anaerobic conditions prevent complete decay. When this happens it forms peat which is like a moss that has a low heat value but will eventually turn into coal over millions of years.

Brian Johnson's coal camp blog post

      Thurmond was built in 1885 used to be a coal town on the edge of the New River in Fayette County West Virginia. There is only 5 white people that live in the town today but back in the 1920’s it used to be booming coal town. Thurmond is owned by the National Park Service for the New River Gorge National River. When Thurmond had 285 people in 1920 it was mostly used from switching trains that came from the mines into trains that hauled coal through the mountains for many of miles. Thurmond was once the site of a Hollywood movie too. The 1987 movie Matewan was filmed right on Main Street since it is one of the last coal towns that looks almost exactly as it did almost 100 years ago. Although there are only 5 residents still living there and the coal town long shut down, long trains filled full with coal continuously pass threw Thurmond everyday.

Brian Johnson's surfaace mining blog

      There are three types of surface mining and the first one is strip mining. Strip mining is where they mine from the surface of the mountain down. The first step is deforestation where all trees and everything else is bulldozed down. Then they blow up the dirt and rock (over burden) and move it to valleys until they reach the coal seam in the earth. The advantages for strip mining are that it is easy, safer, and less expensive to extract from the ground. One big disadvantage is that it pollutes local steams and ecosystems. When it rains the water drains threw the loose dirt and extracts the minerals and washes them into streams causing many of problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Contour mining is another method of surface mining in which they cut along the contour lines in the mountain. This type of mining is used when the slope of the mountain is really steep. Each time they take the overburden off they have to move it to a previously mined location. The disadvantages are landslides and erosion and the overburden to coal ratio. It is time to call it quits on the mining site when you have spend more on moving the overburden than you get from the coal. But some people do think that contour mining is good for West Virginia because of our big steep mountains.

 

 

      The last method of surface mining is the most controversial, mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal is pretty self explanatory.  They literally take off the top off a mountain sometimes up to 400 feet to get to the coal seams underneath. The only good thing about it is that it is the most effective method of mining but has the most disadvantages.  No matter what the coal companies say the mountain will never be the same as it used to be. For one the mountain is chopped off and it causes extreme pollution to the area and put toxics into the watershed killing them.