Blog Post #5

Below is a brainstorm of a specific topic for our documentary. I have included a bunch of links we can use to follow up if we decide to go forward with this specific topic.

Brainstorm:
             We would like to focus on how abandoned coal mines in Kentucky have impacted the environment and what solutions we can put into place to help reverse the environmental effects of coal mining. We are specifically looking at rural communities in Kentucky such as Pikeville and Eastern Kentucky. Mining today disturbs 3 times as much land as it did in the 1980s according to https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article215487870.html. There are about 50,000 abandoned coal mines in the United States and 12,408 of those are classified as ‘Priority 3’ (https://skytruth.org/2015/10/mapping-abandoned-coal-mines/) Priority 3 mines pose a threat to the safety and health of the surrounding people and environment. The Abandoned Mine Lands Initiative is a government program that is working to clean up areas destroyed by mining. The United States Environmental Protection Agency is educating people on how to respond to abandoned mines, to prevent sudden releases of fluid mine waste. Doing research, I thought we could focus on the Martin Country coal slurry as an example of the negative impacts coal mining has on the environment. The coal spill killed everything in the water and polluted 200-300 miles of the Big Sandy River and the Ohio river. This happened in 2000 and as of 2018, the water quality is still affected. Possible solutions to preventing coal spillage are using certain bacteria to make ‘biocement’ which makes the coal ash easier to store (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/03/190304121500.htm). Here is a link where people are speaking out about the negative side effects of cleaning coal ash. https://apnews.com/a7c90c7577e74715b00a4e02d48afc96

Sources:
https://semspub.epa.gov/work/HQ/176382.pdf
visual representation of coal mines in the US: https://skytruth-org.carto.com/viz/743a74d4-6e94-11e5-9f65-0ecfd53eb7d3/embed_map
University of Kentucky Geological Survey:
https://www.uky.edu/KGS/coal/coal-environment-web-links-state.php
Martin County Coal Slurry spill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_spill
This Kentucky coal town is fighting for survival long after the war on coal is over
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/29/the-kentucky-coal-town-fighting-to-survive-after-coal-mining-closings.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
World’s Biggest Producer of Plastic to Curtail Its Use In high school I ran on the cross-country team. Every run I would notice all of the trash lying on the ground and it made me realize how easy it is to prevent trash from ending up in our environment. Ever since then I try to live my life in a more conscious way. I became the recycling coordinator for the track and cross-country teams and made sure people were aware of what kinds of things they were throwing away. I found this article in a sub-reddit and it caught my eye. I really like this article because China is setting an example for countries around the world. Getting rid of single-Use plastics such as plastic silverware, bags, and water bottles is a great way to start helping the environment. Countries all around the world are noticing this issue: France, Thailand, Indonesia, New Zealand, and even some states it the US have begun to ban single-use plastics. The picture I pulled from this page (shown below) shows the amoun...
Read more
'Even though humans can be seen as the problem, we can also be the solution.' This quote is from Sean’s blog post. Reading Sean's blog post, I realized his view on the environment is the same as mine. Impacts that humans make on their environment stretches over the whole planet. Population growth is threatening the integrity of water sources around the world, degrading the air quality, and negatively impacting the lives of millions of living organisms.  Researching further, I learned about the long-term impacts of natural resource extraction. Mountain-top removal and fracking are two direct examples of long term impacts extracting natural resources can have on the environment. The article linked in this post talks about primary and secondary impacts from using natural resources. Primary impacts are effects that occur immediately after/at an extraction site. Secondary impacts are usually longer lasting. In mountain top-removal and fracking, many animals are forced to a...
Read more