Traditional coal mining involves tunneling deep underground. This method is expensive, people-intensive, and occasionally dangerous. It has been on the decline since the 1970s.
In the '70s, strip mine legislation opened the possibility for an alternative. It's called "mountaintop removal" (MTR). It became a popular West Virginia coal mining technique because it's far cheaper than underground mining and requires much less manpower to perform.
The Sierra Club calls mountaintop removal mining, "Quite possibly the worst environmental assault yet." It's easy to see why.
Source: The Missouri Sierra Club
These mountains are among the oldest in the world. They're home to 255 species of birds, 78 types of mammals, 58 different reptiles, and 76 various amphibians. Geologists estimate that it takes 1,000 years to produce one inch of the three feet of Appalachian topsoil removed by mining companies.
To get at the coal, first all the standing trees are removed. They're either burned or used to fill excavated valleys. After years of preserving their lumber, many locals consider this waste a final insult.
Then bulldozers come in and plow under any houses that are in the way. Families had been living in a town called Lindytown since 1927, when Charles Lindbergh made his voyage across the Atlantic.
Five homes in Lindytown remain clustered by this cemetery, which is protected from mountaintop mining by at least 1,000 feet. The church and everyone else who lived here are gone, following the 2008 buyout of local families.
Once the homes are gone, miners bring in the blasting agent ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO), which is poured into large holes drilled in the ground.
Once the ANFO is in place within a series of holes like those seen here, it is detonated. The ANFO residue, silica, coal, and rock dust then burst into the air, where it can drift to communities miles away before settling to a coat of dust.
Under the powerful internal explosion the mountain cleaves apart. Up to 1,000 feet of mountaintop will be removed to expose the coal.
Source: Banktrack
Then the coal is excavated, often using mammoth machines called drag lines. The boom of these machines is hundreds of feet long and its bucket holds space enough to fit about 26 full-size American sedans.
Even at up to $100 million apiece, a dragline is still cheaper for mining companies than the slew of miners it replaced. A dragline like this will help tear down a mountain within 12 months.
Source: Mountain Justice
Then it is loaded into gargantuan Caterpillar 797s that run about $5 million each and weigh, fully loaded, greater than 1.3 million pounds. Below is a full-size school bus sitting in front of two 797s.
To help understand the scale of these machines, consider that the top edge of the 797 body here is more than 50 feet above the ground it sits on.
The rock is used to build dams or "valley fills" that hold back up to millions of gallons of coal waste called "slurry."
The people living below those slurry ponds live in constant fear of a dam bursting, like one did in 2008 at the Kingston Fossil Plant in neighboring Tennessee.
Unlined ponds are suspected of allowing many toxins, like MCHM that spilled into the Elk River, to leach into the ground and into aquifers and streams leading as far away as the Potomac and the Gulf of Mexico.
The sediment pond (bottom) is the final stop for chemical-filled water used in mountaintop removal mining. The cleared land has all been mined and shaped to induce drainage.
All that's left is to get the coal into the marketplace, moving as much as possible by roads, rivers, and rail.
And once you "remove" a mountain, of course, you can't just put it back. More than 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams have also been buried in valley fills.
Not that the mining companies don't try to repair some of the damage. When the available coal has been fully removed from a site, part of the deal companies make with the government for its extraction, is a promise that they'll set the land back to its original condition in a process called reclamation.
The reclamation process begins with an application of hydroseed. A mixture of seed and mulch that clings to the coarse rock and dirt below.
Once the hydroseed takes hold, a flush of green will coat the mountain debris giving it a life-sustaining appearance.
While mining companies are legally required to replace topsoil they've removed, waivers are granted if not enough remains on the ridge top. In that case a "topsoil substitute" may be used instead.
Source: West Virginia Legislation
But there is only so much that can be done, and the resulting growth falls short of bringing back the once diverse ecosystem.
Then there are the other costs. Pollution in the Appalachian region alone is estimated to cost $75 billion a year in public health expenses.
Source: Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
The technology to bring down mountains around coal seams did not exist when many West Virginians sold their mineral rights decades ago. That means lifelong residents, like Larry Gibson (now deceased), have seen family lands blasted within 1,000 feet of their front door.
A family called the Millers managed to retain their family land. It now sits within sight of this sediment pond filled with mining runoff, and the family now only meets here for gatherings and events.
The 1,000-foot distance from the mountaintop removal to residents' doorsteps isn't terribly far when it's estimated that the explosive equivalent of an Hiroshima bomb is detonated every week in Appalachia.
There's nearly nothing left to remember here in Lindytown, W. Va. One former resident, Andy Green, told us the coal representative responded to his refusal to sell his home by saying, "OK, enjoy your life in hell."
If genetic mutations in fish such as jaw deformities and S-shaped spines, typical of selenium toxicity, are any indication, then the coal representative may not have been far off.
Peer-reviewed studies have found the West Virginians living near these sites are 50% more likely to die from cancer.
Source: The Center for Public Integrity
And 42% more likely to suffer birth defects than Appalachians living in non-mining areas.
Source: The Human Cost of Coal
Selenium, and those mutations, were found downstream from the Millers' homestead after a coal company bought up the surrounding land and began blasting for coal.
But it's not all bad. There is no debating the monetary value of coal, as well as its value to the coal miners of West Virginia. A typical train hauls out about 10,000 tons of coal. At today's price of about $60 per ton, that's $600,000 per load.
Source: Reuters
West Virginia's annual output of 135 million tons of coal draws in more than $8 billion in taxable revenue to the state.
Despite working in one of the most economically depressed areas of the country, West Virginia's coal workers have an average annual wage of $86,796 a year — 89% higher than the average worker.
Source: The National Mining Association
Though shrinking reserves and the switch to mountaintop removal have cost the state more than 100,000 mining jobs, there are still around 21,000 full-time miners ...
Though these numbers are expected to rise over the next couple of decades, neither the jobs nor the coal will last forever.
Source: The West Virginia Gazette
Experts estimate there is only about 20 to 30 years worth of coal left in the Appalachian region.
Source: Reuters