Mountaintop Removal

There’s Coal in Thar Mountains

The Appalachian Mountains are no longer purple mountains majesties but now stripped bare for the consumption of coal.

By Laura Peters petersle@vcu.edu

Students at Virginia Commonwealth University are voicing their opinions on efficient energy sources and the end of mountaintop removal. It is a big controversy that people need to become more aware of, according to organizations like Appalachian Voices, an organization trying to stop the practice. All Dominion Power users in Richmond are contributing to it, because Dominion gets its energy from a plant in Hopewell, which uses mountaintop removed coal.

Mountaintop removal is a quicker way of obtaining coal when the top layer of the mountain is removed to access coal. According to Appalachian Voices, mountaintop removal has an effect on the environment by creating deforestation, contaminating drinking water, and destroying mountains.

“The reason we have a demand for coal is the way the utilities are structured. It makes it more economically attractive to them to produce electricity from coal powered because they make more money that way,” said Hilary Lufkin, the Virginia Campus Organizer for Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

The CCAN’s main goal is to fight global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

“We can avoid all of our projected energy use up to the year 2025 by simply investing our money in available efficiency technologies,” said Lufkin. “That’s actually economically better for the consumer, but Dominion isn’t making as much money that way…coal companies aren’t making as much energy that way.”

More efficient technologies include solar, wind, and thermal energy; all sources that are renewable.

According to Dominion’s report Dimensions in 2008, coal is the most abundant and inexpensive fuel source. Dominion also believes that any attempt to improve the nation’s energy must include coal. Dominion Power and the Hopewell plant run by James River Cogeneration Company were contacted several times but refused to comment for the purpose of this article.

The Energy Information Administration says coal is a nonrenewable energy source because it takes millions of years to be created. Once it's used, more can't be made, all that is left is what has already been produced.

“I became interested in clean energy sources primarily because the idea of global warming scares me,” said Chris Stoicsitz, a biology major at VCU. “Even though it probably won't have a huge impact on me during my lifetime, I don't want my kids coming up later and being like, ‘Hey thanks, Dad, because of you, we're living under a mile of ice.’”

Mountaintop removal causes rapid changes to landscape and habitats for animals, according to ILoveMountains.org, a site that gives information on mountaintop removal and ways to be active in stopping it. The Environmental Protection Agency states that the burning of coal emits carbon gases which causes greenhouse gases to rise.

“With mountaintop removal you're drastically changing the landscape,” Stoicsitz said. “Forests don't grow overnight, so hypothetically speaking when they're finished mining and have a reforestation attempt, you're still talking about a long time before that forest actually grows back.”

Peter Defur, part of VCU’s Center for Environmental Studies, thinks that it is important for the U.S. to move more towards clean energy, because it has the largest carbon dioxide emissions per person in the world.

“We have to get that emission rate down in order to slow and reverse global warming,” said DeFur.

Chris Dorsey, a member of the peace rallying organization RVA4PEACE, is a big advocate for ending mountaintop removal.

“The energy we’re using is destroying the planet,” Dorsey said. “Specifically with mountaintop removal and coal. Coal is the most climate changing carbon that we can put into the atmosphere.”

DeFur said ways to get involved in informing people of mountaintop removal and its effects are through on-campus chapters, such as the Sierra Club, talking about the issue in classes, sending in letters, or organizing public forums.