Mountaintop Lobotomy
Coal miners are blowing up mountains to the detriment of nearby communities. The drive for cheap energy is to blame
The Appalachian Mountains snake raggedly from Newfoundland to Alabama. They are the heart and soul of the eastern United States and a staple of American culture. This rich and valuable landscape, however, may be under the threat of extinction because of a controversial mining practice called mountaintop coal removal—a form of mining used in the U.S. for more than 30 years.
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| A coal stockpile behind Michigan State University's power plant. |
Mountaintop coal mining is popular because it requires fewer workers and is much safer than other methods, said David Cooper, an activist affiliated with the group, Mountain Justice Summer. Cooper got involved in the issue after seeing the effects of the removal firsthand. He was so disturbed by the devastation that he quit his job and began traveling the country to educate people about the issue.
Here’s how it works: A mining team picks a mountain and clears off all of the trees, making it devoid of any greenery. Soil is removed until a seam of coal is reached and can be easily extracted. Coal seams are thick lines of coal deposits that sit at different levels in a mountain; Cooper compares them to icing on a cake—easy to pick off.
The workers want to get as many seams as they can, so they obliterate the top of the mountain using ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO)—a type of explosive used in the Oklahoma City bombing—and extract the coal. If the mining site is not restored, the process scars the landscape permanently and forever erases a mountain. Even with restoration, which Cooper claims doesn’t happen often, a mountain can never be completely rebuilt, and the space is usually used for further urban development.
“Mountains don’t grow back,” Cooper said.
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| Plant workers removing coal from tracks after it has fallen from the train. |
One of the biggest concerns of activists and others opposed to mountaintop coal removal, besides its destruction of the mountains themselves, is the pollution of mountain streams from valley fill.
Valley fill is the copious dirt, coal dust and other mining residue that is pushed into valleys and rivers. This practice contaminates drinking water for surrounding communities and can permanently stop rivers from flowing. Because of the high amounts of toxins in the debris from the coal and other mining by-products, the drinking water that generally comes from mountain streams is contaminated, according to Mountain Justice Summer. This water is thick, brown and smelly. And it can be the community’s primary source of drinking water.
During his lectures, Cooper shows pictures of devastated, dried-up rivers or citizens holding cups of contaminated drinking water. “This is not just an environmental issue, but also a human rights issue,” he contends.
Coal Keeps the Lights on
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| Corn-starch packing material is used as an alternative fuel supplement to coal in MSU's power plant boiler. |
With the recent coverage about alternative energy, most people like to believe that a good portion of their power comes from greener technologies. That’s simply not true. In 2006, renewable energy accounted for about 7 percent of total U.S. energy consumption and 9.5 percent of electricity generation, according to the Energy Information Administration. The rest comes from other, dirtier sources, including coal, though some parts of the country use more coal than others.
“We are still digging rocks out of the ground...kind of old fashioned,” said Cooper. He gives the example of West Virginia, which advertises its valuable natural resource to its citizens with the slogan, “Coal keeps the lights on!” According to Cooper, 95 percent of electricity in West Virginia comes from coal.
“Coal is to West Virginia what the car industry is to Michigan,” he said.
West Virginia is not the only state using this controversial energy source. According to the Department of Energy, coal provides roughly 50 percent of the country’s electrical energy. Coal “keeps the lights on” all across the country—including Michigan State University.
...at MSU, too
The power plant at MSU sits between patches of trees and vast expanses of farmland.
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| The MSU power plant. |
Tall smokestacks emitting steam cast long shadows across large piles of loose coal lumps. Inside, machines crush and burn coal, produce steam and generate 95 percent of MSU’s electrical energy. The man in charge of this electricalempire is Robert Ellerhorst, who has been at the MSU power plant since the 1980s.
The university uses approximately 250,000 tons of coal every year—around 700 to 800 tons of coal each day, Ellerhorst said. The coal comes from Eastern Coal Co., a company that mines in the Appalachian Mountains. The power plant obtains 70 percent of its coal from Kentucky, which uses strip mining and mountaintop removal. Another 30 percent comes from Ohio, which uses contour mining and requires rebuilding the areas that are mined, Ellerhorst said. This restoration is easier in Ohio than in the Appalachian Mountains because most mining areas in Ohio are grassy as opposed to the forested mountain areas found in Appalachia.
Like other companies and universities that use coal, MSU does not require its coal to be produced in a particular manner, but those at the power plant prefer larger, faster-burning lumps of coal that can be obtained most easily from strip mining.
Despite the opposition to coal mining, MSU and coal have a long-standing relationship that will not easily or quickly end, said Ellerhorst. Coal is the cheapest and most readily available energy resource for MSU.
“The power plant is only there because there is a demand for cheap energy from consumers,” said Terry Link, director of the Office of Campus Sustainability at MSU.
When asked about the continuation of coal use on campus, Ellerhorst, who has been asked this same question countless times in recent years, simply said: “Give me a better alternative.”
He added that though he could see MSU adapting new energy sources over time, these energies couldn’t currently supply all the energy MSU requires. “The wind doesn’t always blow,” he said. “So windmills would not be sufficient by themselves.”
Lights Out?
Though cleaner technologies are emerging, it will still be many years until energy sources like hydropower, solar energy and wind power can provide the sufficient energy needed to avoid relying on coal. Still, little steps are occurring all over the country to slowly integrate alternative sources of energy, even at MSU, which has solar panels funded in part by the Department of Energy (DOE), according to state energy program manager John Sarver at Michigan’s Department of Energy.
Sarver also talked excitedly about a commercial wind farm in Michigan’s Huron County called the Harvest Wind Farm LLC. This farm is privately owned by John Deere Wind Energy and expected to start producing commercial energy—enough to provide electricity for 15,000 homes—in early 2008, according to Sarver.
For now, it looks like coal will continue to be a primary source of energy, but Ellerhorst and Sarver insist there are things people can do to cut down on the energy needed.
“If we continue to use the plants we have, conserve energy, and gradually begin to use more and more alternative energy, we can move to a cleaner future,” said Sarver. ´´
Molly Tranberg is a junior at MSU studying professional writing and French. This is her first appearance in EJ. Contact Molly at mtranberg@gmail.com
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