Jason Johnson, a member of Mountain Justice, spoke on campus about the need to fight mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
"Most people are place-oriented and families have been there for eight or nine generations," Puckett said. "When you get that infusion of people onto places like that, it gives a strong sense of who you are."
Aside from culture, Puckett also wants others, including her students, to realize how this particular method of coal mining can harm people.
"It's not just a local issue. More than half of our nation's electricity is generated from coal-burning power plants," Puckett said.
During the Virginia's Power Shift, Mountain Justice Jason Johnson conducted a workshop that discussed the cycle of coal, the effects of returning native Appalachian forests to surface mine sites and myths about clean coal technologies.
West Virginia itself is one of the largest coal producers in the nation, generating 82.3 percent of its total through MTR. Coal burns hotter and cleaner and is easier to mine. Other impacts of MTR, specifically, include land stability problems, blast debris and disrupting the natural shape of mountains.
Mike Abbott is the public relations manager of Virginia's Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy. The organization is not an advocate of MTR, but rather a regulatory authority overseeing all mining operations.
"It is our responsibility to see that mining and reclamation and mine safety practices are conducted in compliance with state law," Abbott said.
In order for MTR to happen, permits must be granted. This is a practice common in both Virginia and West Virginia. However, Virginia permits are generally much smaller.
"There are only three permits in Virginia that are in excess of 2,000 acres in size," Abbott said. "But ... the coal reserves are not contiguous and consist of several seams ... that are mined using contour mining or area mining."
With only five true MTR permits in the entire state of Virginia, citizens may say that we have nothing to worry about here in Montgomery County. Puckett disagrees.
"Our history is not that removed from the bituminous fields of West Virginia," Puckett said. "Montgomery and Pulaski County's semi-anthracite reserves could possibly come into play in the near future. What are we going to do when surface mining runs out?"
"This is basically quality of life versus commerce with a lot of larger implications," Mann said. "I don't think most students are aware of this."
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Thank you for covering such an incredibly important issue plaguing the Appalachia, and in turn the entire watershed for the Southeast United States. However, I feel the need to point out that Mountaintop Removal has not been largely isolated in West VA. In Wise County, VA 25% of the land has been "strip mined" (VA will not admit that they blast mountains, but anyone with a pair of eyes knows that they do) and 33% is on the table for more permits. The landscape of much of Eastern KY is unrecognizable compared to that of my childhood and if the state government gets their way, there will be much more, not less, mountaintop removal mining. In fact, just this year Lt. Gov. Mongiardo traveled the state declaring that "I love mountaintop removal and we need more of it..." Now, Tennesseeians are fighting to keep to practice out of their state, but strip mining is nothing new to them. Thank you again for bringing this issue to your campus. With power in numbers, we WILL save America's air, land and water for ourselves and our children. We cannot let them take away that right. It is OUR right, not the corporation's.
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I couldn’t help but notice that, even though Virginia Tech has one of the top mining engineering schools in the nation, you didn’t bother to get an expert opinion from any of the PhD’s in that department. The article is about mining, and the closest you got to expert opinions was a public relations manager and persons who have a “strong interest†or family from those parts. This article lacks credibility and is in general poor journalism.
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