The consequences of this mining in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia and southwestern Virginia are “”pervasive and irreversible,” the article finds. Companies are required by law to take steps to reduce the damages, but their efforts don’t compensate for lost streams nor do they prevent lasting water pollution, it says.
The article is a summary of recent scientific studies of the consequences of blasting the tops off mountains to obtain coal and dumping the excess rock into streams in valleys. The authors also studied new water-quality data from West Virginia streams and found that mining polluted them, reducing their biological health and diversity.
Surprisingly little attention has been paid to this growing scientific evidence of the damages, they wrote, adding: “Regulators should no longer ignore rigorous science.”
If anything is to be done about this atrocity it better be fast. Obama is likely to be a one-term president and the Republicans won’t lift a finger to stop this destruction.
i agree with brer about getting something done quickly although i do think obama will be re elected; won’t matter though because congress will have more republicans whose only goal in life is to be obstructionist, so nothing will get done for the public good.
If the “public good” means continuing a disturbing trend of supporting environmental “pseudo-science” over jobs in one the most poverty stricken areas of the country, then bring on the “obstructionists.”
More “obstructionist” Republicans in Congress will be, in and of itself, a huge boost to the public good.
By the way, Kentucky just changed the rules for mountaintop mining in the state. No more stream and vally filling permitted.
And mountain top mining doesn’t “destroy” gazzillions of square miles of land, as the EPA states in this piece, though it certainly alters it. Here in Kentucky, reclaimed land has been turned into grassland upon which the largest herd of elk east of the Mississippi now thrives.
Obama will probably be reelected, in part because the nominees from the Republican camp won’t be very strong. The most qualified one, Romney, won’t be able to run against health care, as the federal mirrors the one he created. Obama has become a hawk on military matters. Where he might go wrong is if he continues to support the bankers. Alas, it will be a cold day in Hell when Republicans take up the anti-banking platform. Even though there is gold in them hills.
What’s interesting in the dialogue is the continued hostility to science when it offends corporate interests. The idea that possibly some reconsideration of past practices might be in order is dismissed out of hand. But from what I hear, it’s not a good idea to swim in the rivers of those mountains.
Perhaps they do provide jobs. But are there no other possible options? Is it really can do is work for mining companies? I’m skeptical. What of wind farms? Farming weed? Tourism? There might be plenty of revenue for the good people of these states if there were incentives for a wider imagination. Regulating an industry doesn’t mean that people become lazy; they simply find, and create, other work.
RE: “Regulating an industry doesn’t mean that people become lazy; they simply find, and create, other work.”
Note that in the midst of John’s rambling speculations, he inserts the idea of 1) regulating an industry out of existence, and 2) the State giving “incentives” and creating new industries out of whole cloth once people have lost their jobs with the former’s “regulations.” Perfect little picture of how collectivism works.
On the other hand, the porkers are gracefully flying over the chestnut forests, looking for the succulent nuts from the air, with their newly sprouted and convenient champagne-colored wings — because I wholeheartedly agree with JW’s first sentence.
RE: “Obama will probably be reelected, in part because the nominees from the Republican camp won’t be very strong.”
The Republican Party does not appear to have learned anything from the varying debacles of the past several years, including their attempts to lure the masses into voting for “Democrat lite” when they can get The Real Thang in Obama.
[Comment deleted by Elf – please try not to make comments personal and stick to the thread – thanks]