Orano warns of financial problems at Niger uranium plant
The West African nation increasingly seeks new partners, such as Russia, in its mining sector.
A study released Monday by researchers at Duke University will add fuel to the fire of groups opposed to mountaintop mining in the Appalachian region of the United States.
The study, which appears in the Early Edition of the Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that mountaintop mining removal – where the ridge of a mountain is removed to access coal seams – degrades water quality in the affected watershed over a period of time:
Our results demonstrate the cumulative impact of multiple mines within a single catchment and provide evidence that mines reclaimed nearly two decades ago continue to contribute significantly to water quality degradation within this watershed.
The study collected data from 152 sets of samples from 23 sites over a seven-month period.
Excerpts of the study can be found in The Charleston Gazette.
Mountaintop mining has been in the courts recently in the US.
Bloomberg reported in October that three environmental groups have filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the proposed Highland Reylas mountaintop removal mine in Logan County, West Virginia.
A week earlier, a federal judge ruled that the Obama administration did not have authority to tighten oversight of permits used by coal mining companies that do mountaintop mining:
The ruling by the U.S. District Court says the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ”exceeded its authority under the Clean Water Act when it issued tougher environmental guidelines related to fill material dumped into streams after the tops of mountains are blasted off to extract underlying coal seams,” reported The Wall Street Journal.
The National Mining Association sued the EPA last year over the issue.
The mining industry argues that more stringent environmental regulations are making it more difficult for coal companies to operate mines and maintain jobs.
MINING.com reported in August on two women who staged a “tree sit-in” to protest operations at the Bee Tree surface mine owned by Alpha Natural Resources, the company that bought Massey Energy following a deadly blast at one of its coal mines. The tree-sitters were associated with a group calling for an end to strip mining in the Coal River watershed because of the cumulative effects of mining on drinking water, residents’ health, cultural resources, and air quality.
Comments
Maryanddavid209
Those people should be arrested . They want to prevent people from working how sad. Where do they work how do they make a living . If the runoff is treated as it should be it should not be a problem. When the mining is completed the land can be put back as close to the way it was before. The people who fight these things need to have their gas an electric cut off that way they will the pinch too.