Last week a group of twelve scientists from institutions across the country published a paper in the journal Science that reveals the impacts that mountaintop mining has on health and ecology. However, the real surprise revealed in the paper was not the facts presented, but that the scientists took a stand and called for a ban of the mining practice.
Mountaintop or surface mining is very common in the Appalachian Mountains. The process involves clearing the tops of mountains of trees and top soil, followed by clearing large rocks with explosives. All of this is done so that access is granted to buried coal in the mountain. The process creates a lot of excess debris, but a solution of where to put this debris has not been found so it usually ends up getting pushed down into the valleys and blocking streams and other small waterways.
After outlining the ecological and health impacts of mountain top mining, the scientists report that despite their best efforts in providing evidence for the ill effects of the practice, it continues. “Mining permits are being issued despite the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses,” is how they phrased it. Although the impact of mountaintop mining has been explored (and the results published) by other scientists, this is the first paper to advocate a decision: “Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science,” was their blunt and dramatic statement. Though this declaration will not have an immediate effect, one hopes that it sets of a chain reaction and results in a few changes being made to the practice, or ideally, the eradication of it altogether.
You can read the paper on Science’s website.
-via Ecopolitology
[...] this year, Science published a paper outlining the impacts of mountain top removal (MTR), more commonly referred to as mountaintop [...]