Source I've never heard of the practice before and I'm rather surprised at the amount of environmental damage the mining companies can get away with. That shit wouldn't fly here.
OK, I care a little, but I have to wonder how many of these anti-mining activists benefit somehow from the practice of coal mining. Maybe the smart thing for the mining company to do would have been making generous offers to all of the surrounding land owners, then reminding anyone who refused that they had their chance and now they can get fucked.
Somehow this deal reminds of the fishermen who haul fish out of the ocean in far greater quantities than can be supported, causing the fishery to collapse, but when someone says "maybe you should dial back the amount of fish you're taking" they scream about restrictions on their livelihood. Short-sighted foolishness that ruins the land. Whole place is gonna wind up looking like the moon.
Well, admitting up front that I do not know if there is a long term environmental downside to making more level what was once unlevel (topographically speaking) I don't think this article illustrates that "topping" is a bad practice in theory, merely that it is being carried out improperly - to wit, the requirement ought to be that if you want to do this you have to obtain a proper right-of-way from nearby residents, either by financially compensating them or by buying them out so they can relocate. This would first encourage the companies to choose sites most distant from the most population. Now, as I said it MAY be that there is an overall environmental impact that goes beyond screwing up someone's property like this....I'm just responding to the focus of the article.
I think this case is interesting because the solutions you all are touching on are very close to how I see a truly liberatarian government/society handling them. If you accept that the rights of the mining company stop where they begin to infringe on the rights of others, you have the cusp of the case. For nearby property owners, the practice has resulted in easily definable harm, and restitution is required. In Libertopia this case would go to court, the facts examined, and very likely the mining company would have to pay the plaintiff a shitload of money to compensate them for the damage to their property and the fine coating of coal dust all over everything they own. Others might have a case about the harm being done to the environment, depending on who owns the land itself. But destroying a stream that is the water source for people downstream again becomes a water-rights case in which the actions of one have harmed another. A court might also rule that the mining company can continue their practices if they alter them so that the people around them aren't affected. Buying them out is trickier, because if they get stubborn in a libertarian society where property rights reign extreme, they won't be forced out. At that point the court might place some restrictions on the mine and tell the property owners they have to live with the remainder. Anyhow.
Yup. We can dicker about some details, cry for the rape of the land, or for people with extra dust on their computers, but it really comes down to energy policy in the end. Nukes would solve many of our power consumption issues, and greater oil exploration would also reduce reliance on coal. But ultimately the industry (and the jobs) would redirect the coal production for export - this is our little taste of Africa right here in America (socioeconomic poverty combined with resource richness equals exploitation. whether it's for the greater good remains to be established). Congress has debated and passed lots of laws that impact the practice, so the topic is not so much ignored as an example of screwing the few for the benefit of many - a very Congress-like solution, imo Wiki had some good general info on MTR:
My inlaws live right in that country. Mountain top mining is causing flooding and stuff but that is the whole economy there with coal, that and logging which also causes flooding. Mountain top mining provides jobs but not near the amount that regular mines employ and that is what is driving this. Its money and not safety that drives mountaintop mining, those operators don't give a damn about the safety of the miners.
No, fuck this. We're not letting people buy mountains and destroy the natural beauty of country so they can line their pockets for a few years. You can't regrow a mountain like you can a forest.
I grew up in an area where coal was king. I saw strip mining all the time. Yeah, it tears mountains all to hell. Done right, it did make some otherwise unusable land usable. I know of some places where hospitals, a college, schools, and shopping centers were built on reclaimed surface mines. Even the underground mines do a certain amount of environmental damage. When you hollow out a mountain, it will eventually collapse. When it does, it busts the foundations of homes above it, sinks water wells and streams, etc., etc.
Who's "we?" Unless you own the land, it isn't you. And they "line their pockets" by providing something that people need. A mountain that's carved up...is still a mountain. And we're not talking Mt. Everest, here. These operations cover sites about as large as big quarries. Anyway, the economy has to get raw materials from somewhere. It's unreasonable to expect that every square inch of nature should be protected...
Yeah yeah yeah. I'm sure we're running out of Mountains. I'm sure they are doing it in the national parks. More to the point - YOU need coal to keep your fucking lights on until and unless the political powers that be grow a brain cell and get us nuclear. It's not JUST who makes a profit (God forbid!) it's whether or not we supply our own power instead of buying it somewhere else. That's the same mentality that leaves more oil off our shores than there is in all of fucking Saudi Arabia but we can't touch it. And a dozen other dumb-ass decisions. Sooner or later this country has to choose to have SOME environmental impact on SOMEthing or we can all go back to living in caves and huddling around a fire.
Maybe, maybe not. I live in Alberta, where "impartial" judges tend to have serious trouble accepting that an industry vital to the economy could possibly be responsible for anything negative, ever. Higher rates of rare cancer in native communities since oilsands excavation started close by? Coincidence! Farmers and their livestock suffering health problems from contaminated well water because of natural gas wells near their property? Coincidence! Arsenic levels in moose near oilsands projects are 17 to 33 times the "acceptable" levels? No big deal!
That's part of why I don't trust the free market. If the market was trustworthy, crazy rules limiting the amount of feces in hamburger or the amount of bugs in rice wouldn't have to exist in the first place.
The regulations are largely superfluous. The market works because it's in the capitalist's best interest to produce a quality product, lest his business go elsewhere. If you got bugs in your rice or feces in your hamburger, you wouldn't buy that brand again. Neither would anyone else. Might some producers be careless enough to do harmful things? Sure. But guess what? They do even with the regulations. Regulations are no guarantee.
