criz067
New member
Mountaintop-removal mining is devastating Appalachia, but residents are fighting back | Grist
"As a result, 6,700 ç*ºalley fills were approved in central Appalachia between 1985 and 2001. The U.S. EPA estimates that over 700 miles of healthy streams have been completely buried by mountaintop removal and thousands more have been damaged."
"Block Hollow and replaced it with the compacted rubble of a valley fill. In a region prone to flash floods, nothing was left to hold back the rain; this once-forested watershed had been turned into an enormous funnel. In 2002, three so-called hundred-year floods happened in 10 days. Between the blasting and the flooding, the people of McRoberts have been nearly flushed out of their homes."
Rob
I am not arguing mining doesn't have negative impacts so I don't need all that other info. I was just challenging your original statement. Mining operations do increase runoff. Valley fills are thought to increase runoff but I think it's more likely other reasons before and during mining rather than after mining.
You cut off the beginning of the sentence: "Then TECO sheared off all of the vegetation at the head of Chopping Block Hollow..." Most likely, the removal of vegetation is the culprit of excessive runoff and sedimentation. Strangely enough, those valley fills might actually hold more water than when that rock was naturally in place because the soil porosity has greatly increased therefore the water holding capacity is much higher. One of the biggest problems with valley fills is that since its is permeable and the volume of rock has a higher surface area, more minerals dissolve into the water that ends up in streams below. This greatly increases TDS (total dissolved solids) which is becoming more recognized as a in-stream "stressor" to the ecology.