New Maps Reveal Massive Forest Loss from Mountaintop Coal Mining

by Nick Price and Logan Yonavjak, WRI

Mountaintop removal has become an increasingly contentious issue over the past several decades, particularly in the southern United States. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that by the end of 2010, 1.4 million acres of Appalachian forests will have been disturbed or cleared by mountaintop removal, an area larger than Delaware. And a recent decision by the Army Corp of Engineers has suspended fast-track permitting for mountaintop removal operations in Appalachia.

But why is this mining practice so controversial? Where is it taking place? And what impact is it having on forests?

What is Mountaintop Removal?

Mountaintop removal is a surface mining technique in which explosives are used to remove large areas of mountaintops in order to access underlying coal seams. Before explosives can be used, however, the land must be cleared of all vegetation, including trees and topsoil. After the vegetation is removed, excess rock, debris, and mining byproducts are pushed into adjacent valleys, where they bury existing streams.

Coal companies employ this mining method because it allows for almost complete recovery of coal seams and requires fewer workers than conventional mining. In the United States, mountaintop removal is concentrated in the central Appalachia, an area that includes southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southwest Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. This area produces 33 percent of all U.S. coal, 40 percent of which comes from surface mining.

The Impact of Mountaintop Removal

Surface mining has played an important role in local economic development in central Appalachia, generating jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in state revenue across the region every year. However, the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal are severe. Mountaintop removal is a disruptive practice that requires large areas of land and associated forests to be cleared.

Inevitably, this scale of forest loss has already had a negative impact on carbon sequestration, water quality, and other forest-dependent ecosystem services. Furthermore, despite required reclamation efforts, cleared areas rarely return to their original level of biodiversity, as grasses and other non-woody vegetation tend to reclaim these areas instead of the woody growth that existed before the area was cleared. Carbon sequestration – the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the air – also significantly declines after trees are cleared. In fact, many "reclaimed areas" show little or no regrowth of woody vegetation and thus minimal carbon storage even after 15 years. Water quality also declines as a result of dumping mining "spoil" in existing streams. According to the U.S. EPA, since 1992, nearly 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried by mining refuse. Furthermore, nine out of every ten streams downstream from surface mining operations have been found to be polluted.