Mountaintop Removal Webquest
APES- Land and Water Use Unit
Mountain Top Removal Webquest
http://appvoices.org/end-mountaintop-removal/
Name: _________________________________________________
Answer the following questions:
Mountaintop Removal 101
1: What is mountaintop removal?
Mountaintop removal is any method of surface coal mining that removes a mountaintop or ridgeline, whether or not the mined area will be returned to its approximate original contour
2: How does each of the following affect the environment:
• Clearing: Vegetation is removed and trees are burned and illegally dumped into valley fills
• Blasting: Uses millions of pounds of explosives
• Digging: uses enormous earth-moving machines known as draglines
• Dumping Waste: the valley fills have buries and polluted nearly 2000 miles of head water streams.
• Processing: Created coal slurry or sludge, a mix of water, and a coal dust containing toxic chemicals.
• Reclaimation: According to a U.S. Environmental Protection mountaintop removal may take hundred of years for a forest to re-establish itself on the mine site.
3: Where is mountaintop removal happening?
It takes place in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, Southwest Virginia, and East Tennessee.
4: What can be done to stop mountaintop removal?
The clean water act prohibits allowing coal companies to dump mining waste into our nations waterways.
5: What agencies are involved in regulating mountaintop removal?
President’s Council on Environmental Quality, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and The U.S. department of the interior
6: What is one reason why we don’t need to use this type of process?
Because it provides less than half of the nation’s electricity
Economic Impacts of Mountaintop Removal
7: Summarize the economic impacts of mountaintop removal
It creates less opportunities for jobs because it doesn’t use man power but rather machine power. It’s other barrier to economy is that by making the area less attractive it’ll decrease other industries by the means of pollution of land, air and water.
Ecological Impacts of Mountaintop Removal
8: Summarize the ecological impacts of mountaintop removal
Responsible for significant increases in conductivity and hardness as well as sulfate and selenium concentrations in water, responsible for the elimination of over 1.2 million Acers of forest as well as decrease the biodiversity of animal and plant species in a region.
Community Impacts of Mountaintop Removal
9: How does mountaintop removal affect the local community?
Results contaminated drinking water, forceful blasting, increased flooding and unsafe sludge and slurry impoundments.
Mountain Top Removal Webquest
http://appvoices.org/end-mountaintop-removal/
Name: _________________________________________________
Answer the following questions:
Mountaintop Removal 101
1: What is mountaintop removal?
Mountaintop removal is any method of surface coal mining that removes a mountaintop or ridgeline, whether or not the mined area will be returned to its approximate original contour
2: How does each of the following affect the environment:
• Clearing: Vegetation is removed and trees are burned and illegally dumped into valley fills
• Blasting: Uses millions of pounds of explosives
• Digging: uses enormous earth-moving machines known as draglines
• Dumping Waste: the valley fills have buries and polluted nearly 2000 miles of head water streams.
• Processing: Created coal slurry or sludge, a mix of water, and a coal dust containing toxic chemicals.
• Reclaimation: According to a U.S. Environmental Protection mountaintop removal may take hundred of years for a forest to re-establish itself on the mine site.
3: Where is mountaintop removal happening?
It takes place in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, Southwest Virginia, and East Tennessee.
4: What can be done to stop mountaintop removal?
The clean water act prohibits allowing coal companies to dump mining waste into our nations waterways.
5: What agencies are involved in regulating mountaintop removal?
President’s Council on Environmental Quality, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and The U.S. department of the interior
6: What is one reason why we don’t need to use this type of process?
Because it provides less than half of the nation’s electricity
Economic Impacts of Mountaintop Removal
7: Summarize the economic impacts of mountaintop removal
It creates less opportunities for jobs because it doesn’t use man power but rather machine power. It’s other barrier to economy is that by making the area less attractive it’ll decrease other industries by the means of pollution of land, air and water.
Ecological Impacts of Mountaintop Removal
8: Summarize the ecological impacts of mountaintop removal
Responsible for significant increases in conductivity and hardness as well as sulfate and selenium concentrations in water, responsible for the elimination of over 1.2 million Acers of forest as well as decrease the biodiversity of animal and plant species in a region.
Community Impacts of Mountaintop Removal
9: How does mountaintop removal affect the local community?
Results contaminated drinking water, forceful blasting, increased flooding and unsafe sludge and slurry impoundments.