In the Appalachians of the United States, mining coal on mountaintops is still a common practice. With the help of technology, algorithms and satellite imagery, it can finally come to an end.
By Frank Odenthal
For millions of people around the world, burning coal as an energy source is a daily reality. Despite the damage that coal and other fossil fuels do to the environment, especially to our climate, mining continues even in advanced economies such as Germany or the UK.
Surface mining is particularly damaging, as it literally turns the terrain upside down and degrades it tremendously.
One of these surface mining techniques — mountaintop mining — is so pernicious that you would expect it not to be used at all in the 21st century. Unfortunately, this extraction method is still used in the United States.
For those living in any of the central Appalachian states of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, or Tennessee, mountaintop mining is also a daily reality. “You need really big machines and a lot of explosives, and then you blow away the top layers of the mountains to expose the coal seams below,” said Erin Savage, senior program manager at Appalachian Voices, a West Virginia-based NGO that works. to stop mining through the removal of mountain tops.
Over the past few decades – at least the past 40 years – coal companies have looked for increasingly cheaper ways to extract coal. So far, about 500 mountain peaks have been removed and to this day some mining companies apply for permits to extract coal in this way.
ALL THAT GREAT, ALL THAT COAL TRUCK TRAFFIC
The impact on the environment is huge. One of the biggest problems is the excess material that used to cover the mountaintops, which the coal companies are putting back to reshape the mountain to its estimated original height. But once that material is inflated, it tends to expand. “So they always have excess material,” Savage said, “and often what they do is push that excess over the edge of the mountains into the valleys below, burying headwaters, which in the long run can cause a lot of water pollution in the downstream areas.”
Mountaintop mining is destroying the landscape, turning areas that should be lush with forests and wildlife into vast lunar landscapes. © Curious Photography / Unsplash
In addition, rebuilding mountain peaks does not return the mountain to its original state, as the blown material is infiltrated by rainwater much faster than in its original geological state. So the water builds up much faster and dissolves pollutants; these then end up in the flows below, where they cause a number of problems.
In addition, there is a rich aquatic life, such as juvenile fish, macro invertebrates and small insects that live in the water, which are sensitive to those kinds of pollutants.
There are also numerous human health studies on the correlation between mine proximity and various health issues. Dust appears to be an important contributor, coming from the explosions, but also from coal freight traffic passing close to residential areas. Black lung is reportedly having a resurgence in the Appalachians as it affects not only a growing number of miners but also those who live nearby.
Mountaintop removal has even made international headlines lately, as another West Virginia-based NGO called Skytruth published some impressive images of Appalachians with their peaks blown away. “We’ve worked with Skytruth a lot over the years,” recalls Erin Savage of Appalachian Voices. For many people, even those from the region, it was the first time they could really see the devastating impact of that particular mining practice.
MEASURE DIFFERENT WAVE LENGTHS
Skytruth specializes in remote sensing and uses Google Earth and other publicly available satellite image providers to view the country from above.
“We recently started a project with them where they essentially wrote an algorithm to use publicly available remote sensing images to measure how the claim of the degraded mountains and valleys is progressing,” explains Savage. “They’re actually looking at the vegetation cover. How many trees are there and how much grassland?”
Skytruth’s approach is to measure different wavelengths of light. They use their algorithms to distinguish between the light coming from a forest and, for example, a parking lot. But they also managed to identify areas that had made a claim, but were growing back as plain grassland or with non-native plants. “That was really quite successful,” Savage recalls. “They could write a paper on how well the claim is going.”
Mining companies in the four central Appalachians are required by law to restore the land they have left behind. But many of the companies are lagging behind claim standards. With the help of Skytruth, Erin Savage and Appalachian Voices were able to quantify it.
Draglines dig into the heart of the mountain to extract the coal. © 123rf.com
“But the problem is that some of the enforcement mechanisms that the law has in place don’t really work anymore,” explains Savage. “For example, if coal companies have too many violations in previous mines, they will be listed and will not be able to get new permits. But now that the end of the coal era is in sight, many of these coal companies don’t want new permits anyway, so they don’t worry too much about their environmental obligations.”
The bar contacted one of the largest coal companies in the region, Bluestone Coal Company, owned by West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, for comment. To date there has been no response.
Originally published on FairPlanet
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