Appalachia Featured on '20/20' and in Court Rulings

Poverty in Appalachia was featured on ABC's "20/20" Friday night with Diane Sawyer's latest feature, "A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains." However, there was other news affecting Appalachia.

Mountaintop coal mining companies in the Appalachian Mountains won a favorable ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, Virginia. This will allow coal mining companies to pick up the Appalachia pace of "mountaintop removal mining," which is just that: As much of 1,000 feet of a mountaintop is blasted away. The average height of a mountain in Appalachia is about 3,000 feet above sea level.

Environmental activists and outdoor sports enthusiasts are outraged. They now are placing hopes in President Barack Obama, who spoke against mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia during his campaign. The administration of President George W. Bush was generally supportive of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

When mountaintop removal mining is practiced in Appalachia, no vegetation survives on the plateaus that are created. Companies cut down the trees and vegetation, and then they either sell or burn the lumber. Some companies remove the topsoil for reclamation, but others do not make such an investment.

Next, the mountains of Appalachia are plugged with explosives that blast the rock and the subsoil, exposing the coal seams. However, the waste product falls into the rivers and streams of Appalachia, either filling them completely or fouling their waters. On occasion, homes have been destroyed.

Mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia is an alternative to digging mine shafts. Miners in Appalachia no longer are at such severe risk of black lung disease or mine shaft collapses. However, fewer miners are needed for mountaintop removal mining, and so unemployment rates in the small towns of Appalachia have risen as high as 37 percent, according to the Associated Press.

Coal company executives answer that they plant new trees on the plateaus that result from mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia, and that they create alternative streams.

Protests will continue. The Civil Society Institute says a recent survey indicates that 74 percent of Americans oppose expansion of mountaintop removal mining, although of course this is not a neautral source. North Carolina State Representative Pricey Harrison has introduced a bill that would ban all mountaintop removal mining in the Tar Heel State.

Books that explore mountaintop removal mining include "Bringing Down the Mountains," "Missing Mountains," "Moving Mountains," and "Coal River." A musical group known as "Public Outcry" performs anti-mountaintop removal songs.

A cultural historian, Jeff Biggers, published "The United States of Appalachia" in 2006. An award-winning documentary film is titled "Mountain Top Removal," produced by Haw River Firms.

The leading opposition group is the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

SOURCES

http://abcnewsstore.go.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/DSIProductDisplay?catalogId=11002&storeId=20051&productId=2025853&langId=-1&categoryId=100013

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/science/earth/14mountain.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021301827.html?wprss=rss_nation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining