Destroy to Gain

By ALEXIS TAYLOR

Tates Creek High School, Lexington, Ky.

 

How can we accept the practice of mountaintop removal?

Mountaintop removal is a type of surface mining. The mining companies use explosives to blow off the top to make access to coal easier. More than 700 acres of western Appalachia are filled with debris from mountaintop removal.

There are some obvious benefits to this practice. First, it’s cheaper than sending miners into a mine.

And it’s certainly safer for the miners. For example, 33 Chilean miners were trapped underground for 69 days last fall. That doesn’t happen with mountaintop removal mining.

But that could mean that a lot of workers will be out of work.

Much needed jobs could be lost.

When miners take jobs, they know the risks. It’s not necessarily anyone’s fault when they get trapped. The risk is a part of the job.

The mining companies, on the other hand, are trying to get the biggest bang for their bucks and blowing the top of a mountain produces that. They’re getting reward with little or no work.

However, mining companies are arguing that they are actually improving the situation by planting trees on the damaged land. But destroying hundreds of acres, even if trees are planted, won’t change the condition of the land.

Besides the practice being destructive and making easy work for miners, it his harmful to people around the regions where this is happening.

Experts have said that the practice of mountaintop removal is dangerous because it can elevate mortality rates and cause chronic heart, lung and kidney disease.

Mining companies are willing to risk the well-being of human health for coal.

Mountaintop removal not only harms people, it harms the earth. When mining companies blow up the mountain, tons of debris are left behind. This debris is either in the air, or it gets washed into rivers affecting drinking water throughout the region. Also the debris left over has destroyed acres of the deciduous forests in North America.

Mountaintop removal causes serious environment and health problems and destruction of land.

Why consider it?