The Human Toll: Mountaintop Removal Mining

In eastern Kentucky, an area rich with mountain culture, a man is baptized in a lake surrounded by mountains -- some of which are beginning to be mountaintop mined for coal. Many opponents of mountaintop mining say that this form of mining is destroying Appalachian heritage. Many churches still perform river baptisms, yet the practice of mountaintop removal has contaminated or buried nearly 2,000 miles of mountain streams across Appalachia.
   
A mountaintop removal mine site in eastern Kentucky. Throughout the Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia, over 500 mountains encompassing nearly a million acres have been blown up, destroying the hemisphere's oldest and most biologically dense and diverse forests and burying thousands of miles of streams. Proponents argue that in some areas of the mountains, this form of mining is the only way to access thin seams of coal that underground mining would not be able to get.
   
A Walmart sits on an old mountaintop removal site in Logan, West Virginia. This is one example of what the coal industry says is a benefit of mountaintop removal mining -- once the mining is done, there is flat land on which to develop another economic source.
     
  
Erica and Rully Urias must bathe their daughter, Makayla, age 5, in contaminated water that is the color of tea. Their water has been tested and contains high levels of arsenic. The family attributes this water problem primarily to the blasting which they believe has disrupted the water table and cracked the casing in their well, allowing seepage of heavy metals into their water, and also to the runoff from the mountaintop removal sites surrounding their home. The coal company that mines the land around their home has never admitted to causing this problem, but they do supply the family with bottled water for drinking and cooking. Contaminated and colored water in has occurred in other coalfield communities as well where mountaintop mining is practiced.
   
Children play in a mountain stream in front of their home that sits near mountaintop removal sites in eastern Kentucky. Miles of streams have been contaminated by the run-off from mountaintop removal sites: as the rainwater runs down the now-bare mountains, it picks up heavy metals exposed from the blasting, including selenium, that then get into the mountain streams. One study associates selenium with deformities; fish larvae found in a downstream reservoir have curved spines and both eyes on one side of their bodies. In addition to contaminating mountain streams, mountaintop removal mining has buried close to 2,000 miles of streams across Appalachia.
   
Rhonda McCormick flushes out her son's catheter as she cares for him in their home in Prenter, WV. Josh was diagnosed with kidney cancer and is one of the many residents of this small town who have had kidney issues, gallbladder problems, or some type of cancer, including brain tumors. Many of the residents believe these health issues may be a result of their contaminated water, which they attribute to decades of mountaintop and underground mining activities near their small town. Water tests have discovered high levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, manganese, and other chemicals at levels that federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage to the kidneys and nervous system. These are the same chemicals that are found in coal slurry -- what is left over after coal is cleaned. The slurry is held in holding ponds or injected into abandoned mine shafts underground. Many believe that the blasting has disrupted the geological strata to allow seepage of this slurry into their water table. A group of residents have filed a lawsuit against several coal companies that mine the area.
     
  
A coal powered plant in eastern Kentucky. Coal-burning plants are the largest U.S. source of carbon dioxide pollution -- producing 2.5 billion tons every year -- a leading cause of global warming.
   
Ashley Moore, age 8, looks out of a window onto a porch in her trailer home in the coalfield town of Prenter, West Virginia. Despite the fact that coal is one of the United States’ richest natural resources, West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the country, and the counties in WV that have coal, are the poorest counties throughout the state.
   
Tree seedlings grow into a rocky ground that have recently been planted for reclamation on a mountaintop removal site in eastern Kentucky. Because the rich topsoil on which trees and native plants once thrived has been scraped off during the mining, often times it is difficult to get many native trees to survive on reclaimed sites. Complete reforestation is rare, and many sites end up as grassy pastures after it is hydro-seeded.
     
  
Josh's father, Kenny, leans over his son's casket. Josh passed away after his fight with kidney cancer at the age of 22. A high number of residents of Prenter, WV, have died or become seriously ill and many believe it is related to their water supply, which is thought to be contaminated by decades of mountaintop removal and underground mining near their community. Mountaintop removal mining has become a controversial and highly debated issue as communities near the coalfields suffer from contaminated water and a high level of illnesses and mortality.
   
Her dollhouse's ghostly image will be all that's left in Kaylee Carter's room after her parents and Grandma pack their home's belongings to move from Lindytown, WV. Massey Energy recently bought out the town to make way for its mountaintop removal site.
   
The town of Lindytown, WV, sits vacant as homes once filled with families who had been there for generations are boarded up after the buyout by the coal company working on a mountaintop mine right above. This once close-knit rural community is now a ghost town.