A mine is about to take place in the Penokee range, which will damage northern Wisconsin land and waters for centuries to comes. This land and water has been known for their outstanding environmental standards and quality. The land is a part of who the Native people are. The damage from the mine is permanent. Mine companies have so much money it’s like they can just buy their way through anything.
Mines often take a big piece of land and destroy it along with all the surrounding areas; there is no environmental safe way of mining. A mine is good for economical purposes but if a big chunk of land is wasted like the Penokee range will be, then the mine shouldn’t happen. With the mine being deemed as uneconomical, it wouldn’t make sense to let it happen. Communities can work together to fight the mining company. There have been numerous reports of community complaints due to the mining companies promising the communities things they haven’t carried out. The mining companies have also failed to pay for the damages or invest in the communities. They’re multi-billion dollar companies so they walk all over everybody, with no one to stop them.
There are many scientific factors that should be considered or looked into. Before they start mining the area, they should fully understand the consequences. Ground pyrite can be exposed to oxygen and water, allowing it to oxidize more quickly. When the pyrite is oxidized it generates sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid from the Penokee mine will be leaked into the environment which would threaten Cooper Falls State Park, the Bad River, Lake Superior water quality, aquatic lands, and the wet lands. The sulfuric acid comes from the ‘waste rock’ which is iron pyrite. The waste rock mixed with rain water ...
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... area has seventy-one miles of rivers and streams that flow through it. Researchers have found that there is “over 150 Indian allotments on the ore deposit issued from 1858 through 1887” (Northern Wi, Mining). The penokee range was noted as an “important bird area and a conservation opportunity area of continental significance” (Davis). The Penokee is such a unique landmark that should be left alone for future generations.
The mine should not be done, especial to such a majestic place like the penokee range. Anyone who has seen the range would understand why stopping the mine would be a good thing. Nothing good is coming from the mine other than money. There are plenty of bad things that will happen due to the water pollution, air pollution, and water usage from the mine. Communities can work together to fight the mine company, and together people can be heard.
Also, drilling in Alaska will not harm the wildlife. Take Prudhoe Bay for example. The Central Arctic Caribou Herd that occupies Prudhoe Bay has grown from a population of 6000 in 1978 to 27000 today. This is a 450% growth over 26 years at an average of 17.3% growth per year. (Arctic Power) That’s quite an increase.
In the video “Fracking Hell: The Untold Story” by Link TV explains how natural gas has been a huge problem not only for the earth in general but for everyone and everything living in it. The video explains how North East of Pennsylvania is having difficulties to conserve a healthy environment and people. North East of Pennsylvania is the main sources to extract gas and send it throughout the United States for gasoline and so on. However, this action is wonderful for the cost of gas, but has a huge impact on the environment and the people living in Pennsylvania. A lot of people in this state are worried having health issues because everything is not usable is being thrown out to the rivers where they get their fresh water.
The environment needs protecting because even before the drilling started hunting was rapidly decreasing the amount of animals in the area. So if drilling occured in Alaska the animal count would go down even more. Drilling is gonna need space, and because Alaska is a mountained and woodland area they will have to make space by destroying trees etc. Destroying trees means destroying animals’ homes. According to document E ‘just look 60 miles west to Prudhoe bay- an oil complex that has turned 1,000 square miles of fragile tundra into a sprawling industrial zone containing, 1,500 miles of roads and pipes’. Also the document states that the would be
Removal of the mountaintops causes environmental impacts from blasting. The blasting has caused rocks to be deposited into valleys on the hillsides, burying almost 2,000 miles of streams which feed the Mississippi River. Slurry, the residue which is used to clean the coal can wash into groundwater and may contain arsenic, lead, manganese, iron, sodium, strontium, and sulfate. A recent research study is beginning to link these environmental impacts to the grave health concerns in the Appalachian communities. During most of the Mountaintop removal mining’s history coal industries have been able to obtain permits easily to operate, but once under the Obama administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) those permits now take more time to obtain. The permit process requires all applications to be reviewed before being given out to coal
In the beginng of try to answer the ethical question of was mountaintop removal mining right or wrong for West Virginia, I decided to look at the environmental hazards first, exploring all the possible...
The debate on drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge is an intensely debated topic of America today. Proponents of the oil drilling believe that the oil in the refuge will solve the high prices of gasoline, but they don’t even know what amount of oil the refuge holds and the amount of oil that we use every year in the United States. The drilling in ANWR will severely damage the wildlife refuge and its environment. The oil would take years to access with drilling and so far there has been no proof that the drilling would actually produce enough oil to sustain our needs as a country. Also a reason to not drill in the refuge is because the reserve is being saved for when our country is in a national emergency, or until when there is no oil left because of its rapid decline in availability. How did you feel when just about a year ago there was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? That event killed the environment in the Gulf and millions of innocent animals died to our screw up, if the drilling in ANWR is allowed we could be faced with these same exact circumstances again. These are the reasons that the oil drilling in the national refuge should not be allowed.
Mountain Top Removal is an American tragedy, the process in which mining companies remove forests and topsoil then explode the mountain apart level by level to get to coal layer. It is estimated that the explosives are equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb. A lot of the mining waste is discarded into valleys and streams; the water runoff is high in silt, ion, and sulfur compounds, which in turn pollute water downstream. Even with chemical treatments, vegetation has a hard time growing on the infertile and highly acidic soil. Mountain top removal occurs in eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, southwest Virginia, and east Tennessee. Virtually 1.2 million acres of land has been surface mined and more than 500 mountains have been ruined by mountaintop removal mining.
It is a known fact Pennsylvania is greatly impacted by the Marcellus Shale. The Marcellus Shale is a layer of black shale located under the Appalachian basin from Prehistoric times. Natural gas and oil are being extracted from this layer for their increasing economic value, with natural gas having a worth of $10 for every thousand cubic feet of it. Furthermore, improved technology such as “hydraulic fracturing” and “horizontal wells” has made Marcellus drilling more efficient and has increased the implementation of the drilling as a source of economic opportunity for not only drilling companies but for the whole state of Pennsylvania (“Marcellus Shale”). An important part of this Marcellus activity is that “most drilling is occurring in rural areas” according to Joseph Morris, a poll analyzer from Mercyhurst College (Begos, Kevin. “Gas”). Amid the economic opportunity, farmers in these areas are resistant to signing over their farmland to drilling companies. Bradford County farmer Carol French, who wrote an editorial in The Patriot News, stated, “Has anyone considered how these gas developments and industrial uses on farmland will impact agriculture production for years to come if a farmer does not have the necessary means or information to negotiate protection measures?” She fears that drilling will ruin rural property and thus unnecessarily change or hurt farmers’ economic way of life (French). However, because of the vital economic benefits that Marcellus Shale drilling has for Pennsylvania, farmers in rural areas of the state should choose to allow drilling on their property.
Taconite mining has become more popular ever since the rock has become rare. Taconite was once considered “waste rock,” but is currently really valuable. Since the Gogebic Iron Range has about three-fourths of all the taconite in the nation people from all over the country want to take over and start mining. Although taconite mining would do some good for the community, such as creating tons of jobs and boosting the economy for awhile, there are too many risks. Taconite mining has a negative effect on the environment and health.
Many people want to see an end to the mining project in Rosia Montana, or that it is downsized or see the benefits to the inhabitants of Rosia Montana improved. Other demands include the banning of dangerous cyanide mining practices and a reduction in the size of mines.
It is these chemicals that are causing damage to the nearby villages. The mine is located up on a hill. As the water makes its way down the hill it comes down full of sediments turning it a brown colour. It’s these extra impurities in the water that are killing the fish and medicine plants that villages rely on. Pollution in the water is also having an effect on the livestock that are farmed in the area by drinking poisoned water. In 2000, a truck carrying mercury from the mine spilled a container of the toxic metal over a 40km section of road. The accident was not reported until the next day where hundreds of people had to be hospitalised after collecting the mercury (BBC, 2002). An investigation also concluded that the container used to transport the mercury should not have been used and failed to follow international standards for the safe transport of hazardous materials (Hallman & Olivera,
...plete report. Before this was done the mine blew up. In the end, the news story that broke was focused on union campaign contributions and not on mine safety.
Being rich in natural resources, the region contains some of the richest mineral deposits in America (Daugneaux 1981). The coal, timber, oil, gas, and water contained within the Appalachian Mountains are resources that have historically influenced the economic characteristics of the region. The Region's economy has been highly dependent on mining, forestry, agriculture, chemical industries, and heavy industry, among which coal mining appears to be the largest financial contributor to the economy. Although half of the U.S. electricity comes from coal energy, many Americans now precious little about the earth-ravaging mining practice called mountaintop-removal mining used to extract coal in Southern Appalachia. The radical strip-mining process literally blow the tops off mountains with thousands of pounds of explosives to reach thin seams of coal. They then dump millions of tons of rubble and toxic waste into the streams and valleys below the mining sites. The mining poisons drinking water, destroys beautiful forests and wildlife habitat, increases the risk of flooding, and wipes out entire communities. There are four distinctive people groups that are involved in the mountaintop removing process, the coal companies, the Appalachians, environmental groups and the federal court. To fully understand the way natural resources have been understood, used, and allocated, it is important to recognize this diversity. In this paper I will identify the approach to resource management of these four groups in this mountaintop-removal mining case respe...
With the demand of oil growing, the scrutiny of Alberta’s large oil reserves intensifies. The province has the largest source of crude bitumen in the world and major oil sand regions, with Athabasca being the largest (Irvine, Blais, Doyle, Kimpe, White, 2014, p. 1). As the conventional production of crude oil declines, the bitumen found in oil sands are being brought onto the global and domestic spotlight. Additionally, these oil sands are being advertised as the means to make Canada ‘an emerging energy superpower’ (Sherval, 2015, p. 225). The oil sands is a powerful economic resource for Alberta and has helped spur a population growth with the many job opportunities. However, with the operations in the oil sands growing more popular to meet
Mines pose a threat to the environment. They can degrade soil and water quality if left untreated. The United States Environmental protection Agency (USEPA)'s Region 9 assessment of state data states that there are approximately 420,000 abandoned mines in the states of California, Arizona, and Nevada with 13,242 of them being considered "abandoned mines with potential environmental hazard" (arizona.edu, 2008).