I grew up in the strip mining belt of Western KY back before there was
any regulation. Western KY is in a coal rich area know as the Illinois
Basin. Dig a pit, take the coal, walk away. There are many areas of
Western KY that still to this day look like a moon scape dotted with
old stripper pits. The only thing that will grow there is scrub oaks,
rattle snakes and copperheads. Then came the regulation that required
reclamation. That meant they filled as best they could the pits and
then walked away. However, the top soil was lost in the mining process
and the land is forever worthless for much of anything except maybe
scrub oaks, rattle snakes and copperheads.
We have coal under the family farm. I remember the day someone from Mr.
Peabody's Coal Company came to the house to talk to my Grandfather
about leasing some land for mining. He went on about reclaiming the
land and handed my Grandfather a contract to sign. My Grandfather told
him he'd look it over and to come back in a week.
My Grandfather had his lawyer draw up his own contract which was very
specific on the reclamation of the land, requiring a large payment be
put into escrow to insure the reclamation met the specifications of the
contract. Of course Mr. Peabody's Coal Company would not sign it and we
never heard from them again.
Today I think I can speak to the three people who now own and run the
farm, me, my sister and my cousin. There will be no strip mining on our
land - no way no how. The farm is not too far from a small town in
Muhlenberg County called Paradise made famous by John Prine in a song
by the same name. The lyrics of the song ring pretty true.
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/prine-john/paradise-10845.html
Truman
Cindy Stafford wrote:
I interned at a strip mine in college eons ago before I got my
engineering degree. What I came away with is learning that strip mines
can effect greater areas than just the ground being excavated. Water
quality can be affected (we had monitoring wells miles away), there can
be be noise impacts (from the excavating equipment, haul trucks and
blasting), vibration impacts (from the blasting), air quality impacts
(dust from the haul roads and from the blasting) and I imagine
secondary impacts to the ecosystem, depending on the area being
disturbed. And some strip mine operations don't always follow the
rules and have nifty ways of hiding stuff from the inspectors, with
affects to the water quality and ecosystem as a result.
Not arguing for or against it, just some food for thought in case you
enjoy the quiet nearby, the clean water downstream, or the fresh air
alongside and want to preserve it
Cindy (who plans highways and coordinates the environmental studies for
them....)
Karen wrote:
-- “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in
higher
esteem those who think alike than those who think differently
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct
him to
hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think
differently.”Friedrich Nietzsche
