Abstract
With the arousal in the 1960’s and 1970’s of widespread ecological concern, belief in the thoroughgoing “connectedness” of things has become commonplace. The assumption of universal connectedness often leads to a vague notion of one big nationwide (or even global) ecosystem in which “everything affects everything else.” This grand system is then described as polluted if any localized waste build-ups occur.
… for a hundred and thirty years [Appalachia] has exported its resources, all of which—timber, coal, and even crops—have had to be wrested violently from the earth. The nation has siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of its resources while returning little of lasting value. For all practical purposes the [Cumberland] plateau has long constituted a colonial appendage of the industrial East and Middle West…
Harry Caudill, Night Comes to the Cumberlands
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References
The chapter epigraph comes from p. 325 of the cited book (1962), and Caudill’s estimate of European coal reclamation costs, used at p. 87, from a communication in the January 28, 1971, New York Times.
The quote at p. 78 appeared in the September 20, 1969, New York Times. The study by TRW, relied on extensively for subsidence and acid drainage damage estimates, was submitted as Report #13497–6001-R0–00 by the Thompson-Ramo-Woodbridge Systems Group to the Office of Science and Technology, Executive Office of the President, on June 1970, under the title, Underground Coal Mining in the United States. The subsidence cost referenced on p. 80 comes from an Interior Department—Commonwealth of Pennsylvania pamphlet called “Operation Backfill” (1964). It is available through the Bureau of Mines, Department of Interior, as are the study of acid drainage by James Boyer of Bituminous Coal Research, Inc. cited on p. 83 and the 1969 study by Bureau staff members entitled “Environmental Effects of Underground Coal mining.” The FWPCA estimates at p. 82 are taken from this report.
The Pennsylvania-sponsored acid drainage study was conducted by Dow-Oliver, Inc., and is reported in 10 American Chemistry Society Reports, Division of Fuel Chemistry No. 1.
The Pennsylvania fire control figure was reported in the September 29, 1969 New York Times.
On surface mining effects, Appalachian Working Committee Report to the Secretary of Interior (June 30, 1966 ), “Study of Strip and Surface Mining in Appalachia,” as well as the cited 1967 analysis, entitled “Surface Mining and Our Environment,” are both available from the Interior Department. The cost estimates for reclamation cited on p. 87 come from pp. 82–83 of the latter publication. The mechanical coal-cleaning statistic and the actual minehead costs of coal were taken from the Bureau of Mines’ September 18, 1970 Coal Report. All figures relating to TVA were supplied by Messrs. Aubrey and Evans of that organization, as indicated in the Acknowledgments.
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© 1972 W. W. Norton & Company Inc.
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Garvey, G. (1972). Appalachian Reckoning: The Environmental Costs of Coal. In: Energy, Ecology, Economy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02421-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02421-6_4
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