- Moderator
- #101
Coal's so much better than evil windmills.
To mine the coal (anthracite now, the bituminous is nearly gone) they completely strip a mountain of all foliage. Does wonders for the wildlife. Then they plow off the mountain layer by layer, putting the coal on trains and piling the dirt up in the valley. The disposed dirt clogs up and pollutes the waterways and runoffs, cutting off water to those downstream. So far over 1200 miles of headwaters have been lost. So far.
It takes about a year to destroy a mountain. The few that are hired into the "promised" jobs find themselves unemployed within a few years. The local towns, having been promised an economic boom, find themselves left hanging, bankrupt, with no new business coming in.
But the worst part is the coal slurry - wastewater containing coal dust, mercury, arsenic, and other heavy metals. The slurry is stored in massive reservoirs held back with earthen dams. Two of those dams have burst already, killing people and livestock and destroying property, and leaving the land it covered in an unuseable "scorched earth" condition.
The land is never replanted or otherwise reclaimed by the coal companies when they leave. They look almost like barren moonscapes, except for the equipment that's been left behind. It's cheaper to let the big old machines rot than to transport them.
To mine the coal (anthracite now, the bituminous is nearly gone) they completely strip a mountain of all foliage. Does wonders for the wildlife. Then they plow off the mountain layer by layer, putting the coal on trains and piling the dirt up in the valley. The disposed dirt clogs up and pollutes the waterways and runoffs, cutting off water to those downstream. So far over 1200 miles of headwaters have been lost. So far.
It takes about a year to destroy a mountain. The few that are hired into the "promised" jobs find themselves unemployed within a few years. The local towns, having been promised an economic boom, find themselves left hanging, bankrupt, with no new business coming in.
But the worst part is the coal slurry - wastewater containing coal dust, mercury, arsenic, and other heavy metals. The slurry is stored in massive reservoirs held back with earthen dams. Two of those dams have burst already, killing people and livestock and destroying property, and leaving the land it covered in an unuseable "scorched earth" condition.
The land is never replanted or otherwise reclaimed by the coal companies when they leave. They look almost like barren moonscapes, except for the equipment that's been left behind. It's cheaper to let the big old machines rot than to transport them.