It makes one wonder who is going to be responsible for all of the sediment ponds, slurry injection sites, sludge impoundments, and all the other nasty crap left behind by the coal industry.
I was riding in Drews Creek a week or so ago and came upon this abandoned mine site. The mine has undoubtedly filled with water and is now leaking into the headwaters unchecked. When I encounter areas like this I always take photos but there is another sense I cannot relay to you and that is the smell coming from this water. The closest I can describe it would be a strong smell of rotten eggs or something worse. It is hard at times to control the gag reflex that comes with the terrible smell of this water.
NEWSFLASH – Our headwaters are being polluted, freely!!! Isn’t it time we did something about it?
The last photo is a reminder of what a healthy mountain stream is supposed to look like. Unfortunately, in this case, it is right before the stream is ruined by acid mine drainage. Healthy stream on the right, acid mine drainage on the left.
Denny nice work. These problems will endure for many many many years to come.
In a perfect world, we would view the stream on the right as impacted or polluted. It appears that it’s channel is much larger than the flow, and that usually happens as forests are cut or roads are built that channelize existing stream flow. But it is nothing compared to the toxic orange death popping out of the ground there. What a contrast. These coal guys should be forced to drink this water.