Land Impact from the coal Industry Coal mining includes strip mining, underground coal mining, mine drainage and more. The problem with coal mining is that the pollution and toxins coming from the mines are causing animals to disperse, causing lands to be barren, and causing habitats to be destroyed. The main problem is the air and water pollution being produced by the mines. Mining operations like drilling, blasting, hauling, collection, and transportation are the major sources of emissions and air pollution. Coal left in the ground can catch fire, and mine fires are difficult to control, with some burning for decades or even centuries, creating a major source of air pollution. Coal mining can also affect the human populations around it, causing respiratory problems, cardiopulmonary diseases and more. …show more content…
Strip mining for example, strip mining clears trees, plants and topsoil it also leads to soil erosion. Mining companies scrape away earth and rocks to get to coal buried near the surface. Mountains may be blasted apart to reach thin coal seams inside, leaving permanent damage on the land. Underground coal mining is also a pollution causing factor it brings wide spread damage to an environment by brining dangerous toxins to the surface. Acid mine drainage causes water to take on toxic levels of minerals and heavy metal that leaks out of abandoned mines. Coal mines are found all over the world but in the eastern states in the U.S they have found many sources of pollution. In Virginia they have uncovered decades of coal ash pollution leaking from three different Dominion Virginia Power sites. Mountaintop removal and valley fill mining has affected large areas of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia and Kentucky. In this form of coal extraction, the tops of mountains are removed using explosives. This technique changes the landscape, and streams are sometimes covered with rock and