You can't say much about the coal mining process known as mountaintop removal without inflaming passions on both sides of the debate. That was clear in the wake of my Feb. 17 column, which cheekily extolled the controversial practice's many "benefits," such flattened landscapes that would lower road-building costs and spur bicycling and new Super Walmarts.
...The Mining Process. Surface mining usually is practiced on relatively...
Mountaintop removal coal mining, a process that destroys majestic views, threatens wildlife and pollutes important headwaters in East Tennessee, deserves the increasing attention it is getting statewide. Gov. Phil Bredesen's appeal to the federal Office of Surface Mining last Friday to make about 67,000 acres of state-held Cumberland Mountain ridges off limits to mining probably did more than anything else in recent years to raise awareness of the problem.
Coal extraction in West Virginia is accomplished generally by underground or surface mining. BOTH methods of coal extraction require the placement of fill structures, commonly referred to as valley fills in acknowledgment of the steeply sloped terrain that exists in West Virginia within small, usually ephemeral and intermittent gullies and erosional features. Underground mining techniques, which account for the majority of West Virginias coal production, utilize machinery to drive tunnels under the surface of the land. These tunnels are situated in coal seams so as the machinery advances further underground, coal is removed. The tunnels are supported by drilling long bolts into the mine roof to consolidate the overlying material. Using a combined system of vehicle haulage and conveyor b...
...SMCRA also established a process by which states could assume the primary authority...
West Virginia political leaders promised Tuesday to speak "with one voice" to clarify the Obama administration's proposals to more strictly regulate mountaintop- removal coal mining. Gov. Joe Manchin, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, and Reps. Nick J. Rahall and Shelley Moore Capito said they would join forces to seek a high- level White House meeting to raise coal industry concerns about tougher permit reviews instituted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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