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Lunch » Tags » Nature » Reviews » Mountaintop Removal Mining (MTR)

Mountaintop Removal Mining (MTR)

1 rating: -4.0

A form of surface mining that involves the mining of the summit or summit ridge of a mountain.

Mountaintop removal mining (MTR), often referred to as mountaintop mining (MTM), is a form of surface mining that involves the mining of the summit or summit ridge of a mountain. Entire coal seams are removed from the top of a mountain, hill or ridge … see full wiki

Tags: Nature, Environment, Public Policy, Mining, Coal Mining

1 review about Mountaintop Removal Mining (MTR)

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One more reason why the United States should be pursuing an aggressive policy of energy conservation

Dec 26, 2009

by drifter51
posted in Green Living

Rating:

-4

I just finished reading Lunch.com member EcoMama's shocking review of the California based company Sierra Pacific Industries. Sierra Pacific Industries is California's largest private landowner and owns huge tracts of land from the state's far north all the way down to Yosemite. According to @EcoMama "SPI owns about 1.7 million acres in the state and is pursuing an aggressive plan to clearcut and convert to biologically sterile tree plantations at least one million acres of forest within the next 40 to 50 years. This forest destruction results in the absence of plant and animal habitat and leaves a legacy of devastation for future generations." The fact that this is being tolerated in this day and age is extremely disturbing to me. And it immediately brought to mind another environmental travesty that we have tolerated for far too long in this country. This is a coal mining technique known as Mountaintop Removal Mining.

Now just in case you have never heard of this Mountaintop Removal Mining or MTR is a process by which mining companies blast away mountain peaks in search of cheap and easy to mine coal deposits. Then when they have sucked all of the wealth out of the area they push the remaining debris into nearby rivers and streams. What you are left with then is a mutilated landscape and badly polluted drinking water for the residents of these areas. Mountaintop Removal Mining began in the 1960's and is mostly done in the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. It seems that our insatiable appetitle for cheap energy has caused the mainstream media, government officals and the population-at-large to look the other way when it comes to this dibilitating practice.

I have driven through the state of West Virginia on a couple of occasions and and have witnessed first-hand the total devastation wrought by Mountaintop Removal Mining. It is a positively heartbreaking experience. But we only have ourselves to blame. The American people remain blissfully unaware of just how much coal it takes to provide the energy each of us use so cavalierly on a daily basis. Neither do we realize the hidden costs of burning so much coal. Acid rain, increasingly violent weather, damage to wildlife and fauna and myriad health problems are the legacies of the ill-advised energy policies we have been pursuing in this nation for several decades. This is why I continue to maintain that Energy Conservation is the direction our country should be headed in. I believe that if we put our minds to it the American people could cut their energy usage by 15% over the next decade without seriously compromising their lifestyles. Then and only then when demand for energy has been trimmed significantly will practices like clearcutting and Mountaintop Removal Mining come to an end. The choice is ours.

One more reason why the United States should be pursuing an aggressive policy of energy conservation

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badbonz007 February 03, 2010

ALl this does is destroy our beautiful country. Nice Job

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EcoMama December 27, 2009

I have heard of this before and have seen some photos of the devastation, it is heartbreaking. Unfortunately Sierra Pacific Industries is one of hundreds of large, greedy corporations that will stop at nothing to make more money. Hey, even environmental companies are greedy like you wrote in your Green Inc. review!

Just a tip, whenever you mention a Lunch member, just put the @ sign in front of the name and it will automatically link to that person. Like you mentioned me in the beginning, you could write @EcoMama.

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coldsteel7 December 26, 2009

I think I'm a lot like Teddy Roosevelt politically. I am conservative, but the environment ranks very high on my list of priorities. Although I am not against safe oil exploration (off shore drilling) off the coastal US, there are many abuses of the environment that irritateme. This is one of them!

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devora December 26, 2009

I've never heard of this form of mining before, but I can only imagine how devastating it is aesthetically and to our environment. It looks like the U.S. has been pursuing energy conservation, but it's just not aggressive enough. Let's hope we're not too late. Thanks for sharing, Paul.

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