The Pros And Cons Of Mountaintop Mining

Since the Industrial Revolution, mining has boomed. With the need to get more coal to produce energy, more and more mining companies came about and thus lots of people assumed the employment of miners. Even before the revolution the need for mining has always been necessary in human history. The need for what the earth produces naturally is the drive behind mining as a whole. Mining is the procedure by which ores or related are removed from Earth. Ore is defined as a rock or mineral, generally metallic, which can be used and mined, processed, transported, and sold at a profit.

The term groundwater mining is sometimes used to define the extraction of groundwater from an aquifer more quickly than it is recharged by infiltration or underground

Mountaintop mining is similar to strip mining in that the overburden above a flat coal deposit is removed. Instead of being stockpiled and used to restore the original landscape, however, the overburden is used to fill neighboring valleys. Although mountaintop mining is an inexpensive method of mining coal in mountainous areas, the filling of valleys can have harmful environmental impacts. Mountaintop mining in Appalachia was the issue of lawsuits, many of them claiming violations of the Clean Water Act by mining companies involved in mountaintop mining, during the early twenty-first

In June 2010, at least 70 miners died following a methane-gas pocket explosion at a coal mine in Colombia. Gas pockets can also suffocate miners without proper breathing equipment or acceptable air supplies, as inhalation of the gas is sometimes fatal. In 2009, seven Bolivian miners also died after gasping poisonous gases released during mining operations. In April 2010, an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia killed 29 miners in the deadliest mining accident in the United States in more than 25 years. The accident powered a series of ongoing scientific, legal, and regulatory investigations into the accident and present mining