[Coal mining destroyed Appalachias mountaintops. Then came the
floodwaters.]
[[link removed]]

HOW COAL MINING INCREASED EAST KENTUCKY’S FLOOD RISK  
[[link removed]]


 

John McCracken
August 8, 2022
Grist
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Coal mining destroyed Appalachia's mountaintops. Then came the
floodwaters. _

, Grist / Michael Swensen / Getty Images / AP Photo / David Goldman

 

Appalachian states like Kentucky have a long, turbulent history with
coal and mountaintop removal — an extractive mining process that
uses explosives to clear forests and scrape soil in order to access
underlying coal seams. For years, researchers have warned that land
warped by mountaintop removal may be more prone to flooding due to the
resulting lack of vegetation to prevent increased runoff. Without
trees to buffer the rain and soil to soak it up, water pools together
and heads for the least resistant path—downhill.

In 2019, a pair of Duke University scientists conducted an analysis
of floodprone communities throughout the region
[[link removed]] for
Inside Climate News that identified the most “mining damaged
areas.” These included many of the same Eastern Kentucky communities
that saw river levels rise by 25 feet in just 24 hours
[[link removed]] this
past week. 

“The findings suggest that long after the coal mining stops, its
legacy of mining could continue to exact a price on residents who live
downstream from the hundreds of mountains that have been leveled in
Appalachia to produce electricity,” wrote Inside Climate
News’ James Bruggers
[[link removed]] at the time.

Now, in 2022, those findings feel tragically prescient. From July 25
to 30, Eastern Kentucky saw a mixture of flash floods and
thunderstorms bringing upwards of 4 inches of rain per hour, swelling
local rivers to historic levels. To date, the flooding has claimed at
least 37 lives
[[link removed]].

Nicolas Zégre, director of West Virginia University’s Mountain
Hydrology Laboratory [[link removed]], studies
the hydrological impacts of mountaintop removal mining and how water
moves through the environment. While it’s too early to know how much
the area’s history of mining contributed to this year’s flooding,
he said he thinks of Appalachia as “climate zero,” a region built
on the coal industry, which contributed to rising global temperatures
and increased carbon in the atmosphere.

“Whether it was the 2016 flood in West Virginia
[[link removed]] or
the recent floods in Kentucky, there’s more intense rainfall due to
warmer temperatures,” Zégre said, “and then that rainfall was
falling on landscapes that have had their forests removed.”

To some regional scientists, strip mining isn’t the end-all-be-all
link to increased flooding. A 2017 Environmental Science and
Technology study monitored how mountaintop removal mining might
actually help store precipitation. When a mountaintop is rocked by
explosions, leftover material is packed into areas known as valley
fills. According to the authors, “mined watersheds with valley fills
appear to store precipitation for considerable periods of time.”

The study did note that material found inside valley fills often
contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals created by the mining
process. These compounds are subsequently washed into streams during
heavy rain, a process known as alkaline mine drainage. According to a
2012 study, also from Environmental Science and Technology, alkaline
mine drainage has polluted as much as 22 percent of all streams in
central Appalachia.

Despite the fact that Kentucky and greater Appalachia have fueled much
of the world’s energy supply for decades, many communities in the
region struggle with poverty and aging infrastructure. Those
conditions are likely to make it harder for many towns to recover from
severe flooding — a particular concern given that climate change is
expected to cause a mix of droughts and wetter summers throughout the
Ohio River Basin
[[link removed]].

Still, Kentucky Democratic Governor Andy Beshear said he was unsure
why the region continues to be flooded “I wish I could tell you why
we keep getting hit here in Kentucky,” Beshear said in a statement
[[link removed]] announcing
a flood relief program this past week. “I wish I could tell you why
areas – where people may not have that much – continue to get hit
and lose everything.” 

The link between flood risk and mining damage means coal country
flooding is more than an Appalachian issue. But Zégre told Grist that
acknowledging the extraction process, and properly funding research to
study the impacts, often gets pushed to the wayside, just like the
region.

“Because [mountaintop removal mining] happens in backwoods
Appalachia, nobody really thinks about it happening,” Zégre said.
“They’re just people in D.C. who are just grateful to be able to
turn on their light and have inexpensive electricity to charge their
cars.”

_JOHN MCCRACKEN is a Green Bay, Wisconsin journalist. Raised in East
Tennessee, he has a keen interest in how climate change is impacting
water, agriculture and culture. His work has appeared in The Midwest
Center for Investigative Reporting, Sierra Magazine, Great Lakes Now,
Belt Magazine, and more. He can be reached via email at
[email protected] or on Twitter @jmcjmc451. Follow John 
[[link removed]]_

_GRIST is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to
telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.  Our goal is
to use the power of storytelling to illuminate the way toward a better
world, inspire millions of people to walk that path with us, and show
that the time for action is now.  We are the only newsroom focused on
exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice._

_Climate. Justice. Solutions. The most comprehensive climate news
focused on progress. Join the thousands of individual donors
supporting a growing nonprofit media organization dedicated to
solutions, equity, and justice. Your generous support directly fuels
journalism that leads to climate action and keeps our articles free at
a time when climate information is needed most._

Join Grist today with a credit card
[[link removed]] or, if you prefer, through
PayPal [[link removed]].
Thank you!

* coal
[[link removed]]
* mining
[[link removed]]
* Appalachia
[[link removed]]
* Climate Change
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]