Mountain Top Removal Mining in Tennessee: Facts
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• Mountain top removal mining MTR is conducted by blowing the tops
off of mountains with large amounts of explosives, extracting the coal,
and replacing the mountain tops with piles of rock.
• Much of the economy and economic development potential of East
Tennessee and the Cumberland Mountains is based on the value of the scenic
vistas of the region.
• Less than .2% of all U.S. coal comes from Tennessee. About half
of that is from underground mining.
• Surface coal mining currently employs only 327 people in the State
of Tennessee; only a small portion of those are employed at mountain top
removal sites. MTR requires fewer miners per ton produced than any other
method of coal mining.
• Travel and tourism is Tennessee’s largest industry and employs
over 180,000 Tennesseans.
• Tennessee has one of the lowest coal severance taxes in the country.
The total tax collected in Tennessee for all methods of coal mining is
under one million dollars per year, less than the cost of one luxury,
mountain home.
• National Coal Corporation has closed all its out of state mining
operations in order to focus on expanding mining operations in the Cumberland
Mountains of East Tennessee.
• Typically, only Japanese bunch grass will grow on MTR sites. The
decision to attempt to grow trees on reclaimed sites in Tennessee is up
to the Federal Office of Surface Mining. It is generally not required.
• There are currently 18 active surface mines in Tennessee. Of those
mines, over 9,600 acres are permitted for surface mining and including
4,646 acres that have already been mined. The number of active surface
mines in Tennessee could increase from 18 to 26 during 2008.
• 13 Tennessee surface mining sites permitted in the 1980’s
or before have never reached final bond release, which means they have
not reached minimum reclamation standards.
• In 2005, a 12-year-old bond-released surface mine site in the
Sundquist Wildlife Management Area gave way. Twenty-three acres of remodeled
mountain slid into Smoky Creek which flows into the Big South Fork National
River which eventually feeds Nashville’s water supply via the Cumberland
River. Sediment from the slide continues to pollute the water. Such slides
are not unusual.
• In the spring and summer of 2008, the water coming off Tennessee’s
largest mountain top removal coal mining site, Zeb Mountain in Campbell
Co., was tested for the bi-accumulating neurotoxin, selenium. The tests
revealed 20 times the EPA allowable level. National Coal continues to
operate this mine without remediation.
• According to the National Parks Service, “the Big South
Fork watershed is the site of the majority of past and present coal mining
in Tennessee. Acidic drainage from abandoned mines, and contaminants and
siltation (including coal particulates) associated with current mining,
affect water quality. Moreover, with rising coal prices, companies are
proposing new areas for mining, including 53,000 acres in the headwaters
of the Big South Fork watershed.”
• Mountain top removal mining deprives industries such as real estate
development, tourism, hunting, fishing, hiking, and forestry of the most
beautiful ridgelines on the Cumberland Plateau.