Environmental Issues And Implications Of Mountain Top Mining

The relevance or importance of environmental issues that are affecting populations locally and worldwide is growing and creating problems. Climate change, population growth, pollution, fossil fuels, alternative energy sources and many others are having an impact in our lives. Governments are implementing laws and policies aiming to reduce adverse impact to the environments. Scientists are busy studying and collecting data, new students enroll every year to study the environmental sciences.
This paper tries to analyze some effects and solutions of mountain top mining. Some adverse effects include destruction of habitats, possible contamination of streams. Solutions could include reclamation, permits, inspection and sampling and protection of wild habitats.
In the State of South Carolina mining has been part of the lives of some communities and pollution and environmental degradation has been the consequence over the years. Mining as defined by the South Carolina Mining Act Title 48- Chapter 20 is “the breaking of the surface soil to facilitate or accomplish the extraction or removal of ores and mineral solids for sale or processing or consumption in the regular operation of business”. Environmental issues created by mines …show more content…
Mountaintop mining alters the hydrological characteristics and degrades the biological composition of the streams in the region of the Appalachian in West Virginia. They summarize that mountaintop mining results in both direct forest loss and forest fragmentation, damaging the integrity of interior forests that could be converted to edge forests. Some results on the effects of mountaintop removal in species is that in this area of West Virginia mining sites there are home to endangered species like the Gray bat, the Virginia northern flying squirrel and the Indiana