Mountaintop Removal Mining Stealing Appalachia
Original Profile
High-wall mining is less Mountain Forest Coal seam intrusive. An auger & conveyor remove coal. Stream Mining Community Photo by Vivian Stockman, flight by Southwings.org A massive 20 story dragline, at work on a mountaintop removal operation near Kayford Mountain, West Virginia.
Mountaintop removal
Mining companies strip forests and topsoil, then blast the mountain apart layer by layer to get to coal seams. Mining waste is dumped into valleys and streams. Water Coal seam runoff high in silt & toxins pollute the water downstream.
The Future of Appalachia?
behind. Instead of fishing, hunting, camping, collecting medicinal and edible plants,
Abandoned Mine Reclamation
One of America’s most successful environmental programs
Office of Surface Mining
2004 Annual Report
The Office of Surface Mining1 is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Interior with responsibility, in cooperation with states and Indian Tribes, to protect citizens and the environment during coal mining and reclamation, and to reclaim mines abandoned before 1977.
Who we are
The Office of Surface Mining is a small bureau (about 600 employees nationwide) operating under authority of the Surface Mining Law2. The Office of Surface Mining is organized around two requirements: regulating active coal mining and reclaiming abandoned mines. It is a fieldoriented organization,
ANALYSIS OF PRACTICAL GROUND CONTROL ISSUES IN HIGHWALL MINING
R. Karl Zipf, Jr., Mining Engineer Suresh Bhatt, Mining Engineer National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Pittsburgh Research Laboratory Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA
ABSTRACT Highwall mining is an important coal mining method. It appears that upwards of 60 highwall miners are presently in operation, and they may account for approximately 4% of total U.S. coal production. A review of the Mines Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) data over the 20 year period from 1983 to 2002 identified 9 fatalities attributable to auger and highwall mining of which inadequate ground control accounted for 1/3.
