Jack Lacey Author: MOUNTAINS

APPALACHIA...

In 'American Crow' the second half of the novel plays out in the stunning Appalachian Mountains, which are the oldest mountain chain in North America. They get their name from the original Indian tribe that lived there and sweep majestically from Newfoundland all the way to Alabama in the south.

The famous Smoky Mountains can also be found in this magnificent range, where layers of ethereal mist can sometimes been seen hovering above them, lending them their name. They run all the way from Tennessee to North Carolina in the south...

The Blue Ridge mountains form the backbone of the system. They extend from Georgia to Pennsylvania on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. Mt. Mitchell is the highest in the range at 6,684ft and was the highest peak in the U.S until Texas joined the union in 1845. The next highest mountain is Lone Butte in Colorado, 1189 miles (1913 km) west. Black Mountain featured in American Crow is also in the Appalachians and is the highest mountain in Kentucky!

Location of Appalachians in U.S...

The Appalachians are stunning and rich in bio-diversity, attracting walkers and nature lovers from all over the world to check out its endless trails...

Ahh that was lovely...now for the not so nice bit...

MINING IN THE APPALACHIANS...

Mountain Top Removal, is a form of surface mining that involves the removal of the summit or summit ridge from a mountain!

First the trees are cleared from the area to be mined for coal...

Then explosives are used to remove up to 400 vertical feet (120 m) of the mountain to expose the underlying coal seams. Excess rock and soil laden with toxic mining by-products is then dumped back on the ridge and compacted to reflect the approximate contour of the earlier mountain...

Any excess still (or if the ridge topography is too steep to adequately handle the amount of spoil produced) is then dumped into a nearby valley or hollow, creating what is known as a valley fill or hollow fill ...

A front-end loader or excavator removes the coal, where it is transported to a processing plant. Once the coal extraction is completed, the mining operators back-stack overburden from the next area to be mined into the now empty pit.

After back-stacking and grading of overburden has been completed, topsoil (or a topsoil substitute) is layered over the overburden layer...

Next, grass seed is spread in a mixture of seed, fertilizer, and mulch made from recycled newspaper. Depending on surface land owner wishes the land will then be further reclaimed by adding trees if the pre-approved post-mining land use is forest land or wildlife habitat...

The 'old ways' though preserved the surface, the shape, and the ancient character of the mountains and the life upon it...Men used to dig for their coal using shafts and tunnels...

Less expensive to execute and requiring fewer employees, mountaintop removal began in Appalachia in the 1970s as an extension of conventional strip mining techniques. It is now primarily used in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee.

Unlike MTR, traditional underground mining, typically employs a narrow extraction shaft which allows miners to collect seams using various underground methods, while leaving the vast majority of the overburden undisturbed and the above ground bio-diversity in tact...

THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT...

Studies show that mountaintop mining has serious environmental impacts, including loss of biodiversity and toxification of watersheds, that later mitigation practices cannot successfully address.Critics contend that MTR is a destructive and unsustainable method of mining that benefits a small number of corporations at the expense of local communities and the environment.

Blasting at MTR sites also expels dust and fly-rock into the air, which can disturb or settle onto private property nearby. This dust can contain sulphur compounds, which corrodes structures and can prove a considerable hazard to human health. Extensive tracts of deciduous forest too are also destroyed by MTR, which support several endangered species, threatening their further extinction, as well as destroying some of the richest plant biodiversity in North America.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in one of their environmental impact statements found that streams near some valley fills created by mountaintop removal contained higher levels of minerals in the water and decreased aquatic biodiversity. It also estimates that 724 miles (1,165 km) of Appalachian streams were buried by valley fills between 1985 to 2001.

On September 28, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) independent Science Advisory Board (SAB) released their first draft review of EPA’s research into the water quality impacts of valley fills associated with mountaintop mining, agreeing with EPA’s conclusion that valley fills are associated with increased levels of conductivity threatening aquatic life in surface waters.

Although U.S. mountaintop removal sites by law must be reclaimed after mining is complete, reclamation has traditionally focused on stabilizing rock formations and controlling for erosion, and not on the reforestation of the affected area. Fast-growing, non-native flora such as Lespedeza Cuneata...

...planted to quickly provide vegetation on a site, compete with tree seedlings, and trees have difficulty establishing root systems in compacted backfill.

Consequently, biodiversity suffers in a region of the United States with numerous endemic species. In addition, reintroduced elk on mountaintop removal sites in Kentucky are eating tree seedlings.

Advocates of MTR claim that once the areas are reclaimed as mandated by law, the area can provide flat land suitable for many uses in a region where flat land is at a premium. They also maintain that the new growth on reclaimed mountaintop mined areas is better suited to support populations of game animals. While some of the land is able to be turned into grassland which game animals can live in, the amount of grassland is minimal...

The land does not retake the form it had before the MTR. As stated in the book Bringing Down the Mountains: "Some of the main problems associated with MTR include soil depletion, sedimentation, low success rate of tree regrowth, lack of successful re-vegetation, displacement of native wildlife, and burial of streams." The ecological benefits after MTR are far below the standard of the original land...

There are also a range of adverse human health impacts which result from contact with affected streams or exposure to airborne toxins...

THE HUMAN IMPACT....

Published studies show MTR sites can have a potentially devastating health impact on those who live near to them. These may result from contact with streams/water sources, or simply exposure to airborne toxins and coal dust...

Adult hospitalization for chronic pulmonary disorders and hypertension are considerably higher in MTR areas as a result of living near to these sites. Rates of mortality, lung cancer, as well as chronic heart, lung and kidney disease have also increased there...

A 2011 study found that counties in and near to mountaintop mining areas had higher rates of birth defects for five out of six types of birth defects, including circulatory/respiratory, musculoskeletal, central nervous system, gastrointestinal, and urogenital defects. These defect rates were more pronounced in the most recent period studied, suggesting the health effects of mountaintop mining-related air and water contamination may be cumulative...

Another 2011 study found "the odds for reporting cancer were twice as high in the mountaintop mining environment compared to the non mining environment in ways not explained by age, sex, smoking, occupational exposure, or family cancer history.”

According to 21 scientific studies there has been major effects on the population in the Appalachia where MTM takes place including over 50% higher cancer rates, 42% higher birth defect rates, and $75 billion a year in public health costs from pollution...

THE ECONOMICS...

Almost half of the electricity generated in the United States is produced by coal-fired power plants. MTR accounted for less than 5% of U.S. coal production as of 2001.In some regions, however, the percentage is higher, for example MTR provided 30% of the coal mined in West Virginia in 2006.

Historically in the U.S. the prevalent method of coal acquisition was underground mining which is very labour intensive. In MTR, through the use of explosives and large machinery, more than two and a half times as much coal can be extracted per worker per hour than in traditional underground mines, thus greatly reducing the need for workers. In Kentucky, for example, the number of workers has declined over 60% from 1979 to 2006 (from 47,190 to 17,959 workers).

     The industry overall lost approximately 10,000 jobs from 1990 to 1997, as MTR and other more mechanized underground mining methods became more widely used.The coal industry asserts that surface mining techniques, such as mountaintop removal, are safer for miners than sending miners underground.

      Proponents argue that in certain geologic areas, MTR and similar forms of surface mining allow the only access to thin seams of coal that traditional underground mining would not be able to mine. MTR is sometimes the most cost-effective method of extracting coal...

  AND THE LAW...

In the United States, MTR is allowed by section 515(c)(1) of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. Although most coal mining sites must be reclaimed to the land's pre-mining contour and use, regulatory agencies can issue waivers to allow MTR. In such cases, SMCRA dictates that reclamation must create "a level plateau or a gently rolling contour with no high walls remaining."

Permits must be obtained to deposit valley fill into streams, though on December 2, 2008, the Bush Administration made a rule change to remove the 'Stream Buffer Zone' protection provision from SMCRA allowing coal companies to place mining waste rock and dirt directly into headwater waterways.

     A federal judge also ruled that using settling ponds to remove mining waste from streams violates the Clean Water Act. On January 15, 2008, the environmental advocacy group Centre for Biological Diversity petitioned the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to end a policy that waives detailed federal Endangered Species Act reviews for new mining permits.

     The current policy states that MTR can never damage endangered species or their habitat as long as mining operators comply with federal surface mining law, despite the complexities of species and ecosystems. Since 1996, this policy has exempted many strip mines from being subject to permit-specific reviews of impact on individual endangered species.

   On May 25, 2008, North Carolina State Representative Pricey Harrison introduced a bill to ban the use of mountaintop removal coal from coal fired power plants within North Carolina. This proposed legislation would have been the only legislation of its kind in the United States; however, the bill was defeated...

For more information from those fighting to preserve the Appalachians...

Go to:

http://www.ran.org/

http://ilovemountains.org/

http://appvoices.org/

To meet the fictional biologist 'Nancy Stringer' featured in 'American Crow' go to...

www.jacklacey.co.uk or Amazon (Available from Fri Sept 13th 2013)

Main Source: Wikipedia/Mountain Top Removal
Wikipedia/Appalachian Mountains
University of North Carolina
www.envirofertilization.com

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