A new study published in the journal PLOS One has found that mountaintop removal – a coal-mining method that clear-cuts forests and uses explosives to remove soil and bedrock – poses a significantly more serious and widespread threat to endangered animal species and humans than previously thought.
By combining 30 years of satellite imagery data mapping large surface mines in central Appalachia and water-quality measurements from over 4,000 monitoring sites across different watersheds, a team of scientists led by the Defenders of Wildlife’s Center for Conservation Innovation (CCI) discovered that mountaintop removal mining activity strongly contributes to water-quality degradation.
“We have been watching mountaintop removal mining expand across the Appalachian landscape for years using satellite imagery,” said study co-author Christian Thomas, a geospatial engineer with SkyTruth, a nonprofit environmental technological company that helped with data collection. “By combining our imagery with water-quality data, we have finally revealed how profoundly this activity harms sensitive aquatic species.”
The scientists found that chronic and acute toxicity thresholds for chemicals such as aluminum, copper, lead, and manganese, as well as acidity levels in streams were exceeded thousands of times even in places relatively distant from the mines. These areas are home to many threatened and endangered species, including 39 mollusk species, 12 fish species, and several snail and...
Read Full Story: https://www.earth.com/news/mountaintop-removal-mining-affects-endangered-species/
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