Coalfield Flooding

We’ve Already Answered This Question, Again and Again and ...

by Vivian Stockman

	In the wee hours of Memorial Day 2004, southern West Virginia again experienced devastating flooding. A man, helping his mother clean out this flooded Logan home, wondered why the government agencies and the coal industry refuse to tell the truth about mountaintop removal and flooding. As he stood in several inches of muck, the man said, "I am standing in the truth right here."

Do mountaintop removal and virtually unregulated logging make flooding worse? If you live near a mountaintop removal operation, you know the answer. If you are a coal-operator or a politician beholden to the coal industry, you dodge that question.

Like the Fossil Fuel Fools occupying the White House who deny the effects of global warming (even though the Pentagon and scientists note that the global warming threat is more severe than the threat from terrorism), King Coal’s Cronies deny the effects that lopped-off, denuded mountains and buried valleys have on flooding.

In a June 29 editorial advocating that the federal government buy people out of flood-prone areas, the Charleston Daily Mail said:

"One thing that could help is the creation of more flat land. But mountaintop mining is not without controversy and some even contend that it exacerbates the flooding problem.

"That is a matter for hydrologists to debate."

(Due to space limitations for this particular newsletter, we can’t address the Daily Mail’s absurd idea that the state needs more flat land when mountaintop removal has already scalped nearly 400,000 acres; nor can we, in this edition, explore the fears that coalfield residents have about coal company desires to depopulate the coalfields, which the Daily Mail could be construed as endorsing.)

More debate? Please! People have drowned, property is being destroyed, and the coal companies are whisking more money out of state, while taxpayers shell out millions for the flood cleanups. More debate when there have been so many studies?

Memorial Day home redecorating, courtesy of flooding enhanced by mountaintop removal mining.

As the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward reported, in June 2002, the WV Department of Environmental Protection was forced into releasing a report on the July 8, 2001 floods. The report said that during that flood, logging and timbering increased water runoff by 5.6 percent at the mouth of Seng Creek (Boone Co.) and by almost 14 percent at the mouth of Scrabble Creek (Fayette Co.). Runoff increased further upstream at Seng Creek by as much as 9 percent, and by as much as 21 percent upstream at Scrabble Creek.

In May 2003, the United States Geological Survey released a study with findings showing that during typical West Virginia summer thunderstorms, peak flows from valley-filled, mined areas were much greater than they were from un-mined areas.

A January 2000 study by the Office of Surface Mining and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded, "This study shows that an ongoing valley fill operation will increase the discharge from 25-59 percent (10-100 year) from pre-mining conditions; this decreases to about 13 percent after the area is reclaimed in the post mining conditions."

News reports of the recent, deadly (over 2,000 dead!) floods in Haiti and the Dominican Republic stated a non-debatable fact: "With no tree roots to hold soil on the mountains, the torrential rainwater barreled down unchecked, collecting silt, gravel and boulders that slammed into villages" (Deforestation at Root of Devastating Haiti Floods, by Paisley Dodds, Associated Press, June 6, 2004).

Commenting on the Memorial Day 2004 flooding in Mingo and Logan counties, Bill Raney, president of the WV Coal Association, told the Associated Press, "I just really think what we’re ending up with is more water falling from the sky in a more concentrated fashion, in a shorter period of time and in a smaller area. Now that’s not popular because there isn’t anyone to blame in that. ...I do understand the need to lay blame, but there is no clear bad guy here."

While trying to deny the role the mountaintop removal coal-extraction process has in the latest floods, Raney inadvertently pointed out the role that the burning of coal has in global warming – making stronger storms.

On June 13, the United Nations University released a study warning that the number of people under threat from major flooding will double to 2 billion within 50 years. The cause? Deforestation, the burning of fossil fuels (coal and oil) and population growth.

Do mountaintop removal and virtually unregulated logging make flooding worse? We’ve got the studies. We’ve got the proof. We’ve got to demand the changes we need.