coal - mtr - mountaintop removal mining and clean water
Beyond Coal
Mountaintop Removal Mining and Clean Water
First Nationwide Poll on Mountaintop Removal Finds Broad Public Opposition
A nationwide poll, released as the Bush administration is proposing to further weaken rules designed to protect streams from mining, finds that majority of voters opposes mountaintop removal mining.
Read our press release and review the poll's finding.
Government decisions to weaken clean water protections are putting communities at risk. Under the weakened protections large coal mining operations are allowed to dump mining waste and fill into mountain streams, burying and polluting local supplies of drinking water.
In places like Appalachia, mining companies blow the tops off mountains to reach a thin seam of coal and then, to minimize waste disposal costs, dump millions of tons of waste rock into the valleys below, causing permanent damage to the ecosystem and landscape. This destructive practice, known as mountaintop removal mining, has damaged or destroyed close to 2,000 miles of streams, destroyed forests on some 300 square miles of land, disrupted drinking water supplies, flooded communities, and destroyed wildlife habitat.(1)
1. Draft Environmental Impact Statement. 68 Federal Register 32487 http://www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/eis.htm 68 Federal Register 29 [Final Rules] [Page 7176 - 7274]