Upstream Considerations...

[NoQuarter]

A beautifully done piece that brings back down to a human level the difficult choices that we often find ourselves in. And, of course, a glaring reminder of the "upstream" costs of many things we take for granted, like electricity. A piece that doesn't take sides and just tells a story. Cause we're all better when we each get to unravel the yarn.

Thought of y'all the other day when I heard this... especially in light of the recent conservation controversies...

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139547261 ... ain?live=1

From the intro:
James "Jimmy" Weekley has lived in Pigeonroost Hollow in West Virginia for 70 years. He grew up surrounded by family and friends, part of a tight-knit community in the state's southern mountain valley. Like his grandfather, father, uncles and sons, Weekley worked as a coal miner. And like most West Virginians, Weekley saw coal as the economic lifeblood of his community.

But in the 1990s, Arch Coal moved into Weekley's area and began work on the Spruce No. 1 mine. Spruce No. 1 was one of the largest mountaintop removal mining sites ever proposed, spanning more than 3,000 acres. It also happened to be right in Weekley's backyard.

Weekley and his wife, Sibby, found themselves surrounded by mining activity: dust, noise and blasting from the nearby site.

[RomanLA]

I'm definitely not a fan of mountaintop removal! I ran across this in an article about it on the American Rivers site...

"More than a thousand miles of headwater streams have been lost in Appalachia due to mountaintop removal coal mining"

http://www.americanrivers.org/newsroom/ ... -2011.html

[BMuu]

One day there will be nothing left, but it wont matter because there will be laws and rules preventing you from doing anything anyways.

[MaxTexan]

Being a former Mountain state resident, this is a topic I have heard alot about over the yeras.

mountain top removal was an exception to the mine reclamation act of the 1930's. The exception stemmed from the fact in the 1970's the technology was only able to harvest coal from near the top of the mountain and thus thought to be an insignificant practice.

People have tried to stop the practice by using laws related to loss of wetlands but so far they have not stopped the process.

The industry tried it best to keep mountaintop removal out of the public eye.

[DeBo]

Mountain top removal is another symbol of our desperate dependence on fossil fuels taking advantage of those least able to defend themselves and trashing the environment in the process.

I read a story earlier today that said 80% of the high quality drinking water from the San Joaquin is used to extract the last dregs of oil from the tar sand formations in southern California. It takes 8 barrels of this water to produce 1 barrel of oil. The water flows in an aqueduct past small towns and communities with polluted and contaminated water supplies and on to the oil fields. This, to me, is insanity.

Similar things are happening right here in Arkansas.
We are all to blame. We should be outraged and demanding conservation measures but instead we fill up the tank no matter what it costs and drive 75.