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...mountain's summit; used mostly in Appalachia, such mining produces 130 millions tons of coal in the region per year. It's less popular in other coal-rich spots such as Texas, where the coal is deeper underground and requires a different kind of mining to unearth. Coal companies say mountaintop mining is also cheaper than traditional mining: rather than burrowing under or digging through the "overburden" (the soil, trees and rock that lie on top of coal seams), which requires lots of manpower and expensive machinery, all you need to hit black gold in Appalachia are some explosives...
Some three million pounds of explosives are detonated each day in West Virginia for coal mining, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and the process shears up to 800 feet of elevation off each mountain peak, says Margaret Palmer, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science. The black scars run visibly up the spine of the central Appalachians. And the explosions don't sound lightly: "When they put these blasts off, it's horrendous," says Maria Gunnoe, 41, of the community advocacy group Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, who lives in Bob White, W. Va., 12 miles...
...course, clean coal technology does not diminish the environmental costs of extraction - to flora and fauna, and also to human well-being - say critics. Mountaintop mining destroys the natural habitats of many local species, whether endangered ones such as flying squirrels or flourishing ones like salamanders. Further, mountaintop debris that is dug up or displaced by explosions is dumped in the valleys below, burying headwater streams, killing the aquatic species that live in the waters and impacting downstream water supplies. About 1,200 miles of streams have been buried in this manner in central Appalachia, according to a 2003 federal...
Overall, the environmental impact of mountaintop mining is so traumatic, says Palmer, that she and a team of engineers, ecologists and hydrologists recommended an end to the practice in a paper published in January in the journal Science. They dismiss federal and state laws, including the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, which oblige companies to reclaim mined land, for example, by rehabilitating natural biodiversity or rebuilding the mountain to its approximate original contour. Massey has undertaken rehabilitation projects in the region, having already planted one million new trees in Central Appalachia - but critics say such efforts cannot...
...alter current practices. Going forward, however, Massey has pledged to monitor water quality; periodically it assembles a 30-member environmental review arm to do so. The EPA is also keeping tabs on mining's impact, while Obama has pledged to support the development of clean energy. Activists like Bonds say attention from the top levels of the current administration helps them continue fighting at this crucial time. But for the former residents of Lindytown, W. Va., it may just be too little too late...