About Mountaintop Removal
EPA Definition: “Mountaintop removal/valley fill is a mining practice where the tops of mountains are removed, exposing the seams of coal. Mountaintop removal can involve removing 500 feet or more of the summit to get at buried seams of coal. The earth from the mountaintop is then dumped in the neighboring valleys.”
Mountaintop removal is an atrocious practice which has destroyed almost 500 mountains throughout Central Applachian. Mining companies literally explode the tops off of mountains with ammonium nitrate oil fuel to expose seams of coal, which they then scrape out with giant machines. While the environmental devastation caused by this practice is obvious, families and communities near these mining sites are forced to contend with continual blasting from mining operations that can take place up to 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours a day. Families and communities near mining sites also suffer from airborne dust and debris, floods that have left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, and contamination of their drinking water supplies.
The Appalachians are among the oldest mountains on Earth, over 300 million years ago they were born of powerful upheavals within the terrestrial crust and sculpted by the ceaseless action of water upon the surface.
Furthermore, mountaintop removal is a mining technique designed, from the very start, to take the labor force out of the mining operation.  Once a powerbase for the U.S. labor movement, unions in Appalachia have been devestated by the transition from deep ground mining to surface mining techniques like mountaintop removal.  According to the bureau of labor statistics, in the early 1950’s there were between 125,000 and 145,000 miners employed in West Virginia; in 2004 there were just over 16,000. During that time, coal production has increased!
