The overlooked terrestrial impacts of mountaintop mining

BioScience

Volumn 63, Issue 5, 2013, Pages 335-348

  Wickham, James ^a   Wood, Petra Bohall ^b   Nicholson, Matthew C ^a   Jenkins, William ^a   Druckenbrod, Daniel ^c   Suter, Glenn W ^a   Strager, Michael P ^b   Mazzarella, Christine ^a   Galloway, Walter ^a   Amos, John ^d  

^a U S ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY   (United States)

^b WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c RIDER UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^d SkyTruth   (United States)

Author keywords

conservation; disturbance ecology; endangered species; fragmented ecosystems; land use management

Indexed keywords

EID: 84878517716     PISSN: 00063568     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/bio.2013.63.5.7     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. Abernathy CO, et al. 1999. Arsenic: Health effects, mechanisms of actions and research issues. Environmental Health Perspectives 107: 593-597.
2. Acton PM, Fox JF, Campbell JE, Jones AL, Rowe H, Martin D, Bryson S. 2011. Role of soil health in maintaining environmental sustainability of surface coal mining. Environmental Science and Technology 45: 10265-10272.
3. Ahern MM, Hendryx M, Conley J, Fedorko E, Ducatman A, Zulig KJ. 2011. The association between mountaintop mining and birth defects among live births in central Appalachia, 1996-2003. Environmental Research 111: 838-846.
4. Amichev BY, Burger JA, Rodrigue JA. 2008. Carbon sequestration by forests and soils on mined land in the Midwestern and Appalachian coalfields of the U.S. Forest Ecology and Management 256: 1949-1959.
5. Bernhardt ES, Palmer MA. 2011. The environmental costs of mountain-top mining valley fill operations for aquatic ecosystems of the central Appalachians. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1223: 39-57.
6. Braun EL. 1942. Forests of the Cumberland Mountains. Ecological Monographs 12: 413-447.
7. Burns SS. 2007. Bringing Down the Mountains: Impact of Mountaintop Removal on Southern West Virginia Communities. West Virginia University Press.
8. [CEQ] Council on Environmental Quality. 2007. A Citizen's Guide to the NEPA: Having Your Voice Heard. CEQ, Executive Office of the President of the United States. (8 February 2013; http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/nepa/Citizens-Guide- Dec07.pdf)
9. Chamblin HD, Wood PB, Edwards JW. 2004. Allegheny woodrat (Neotoma magister) use of rock drainage channels on reclaimed mines in southern West Virginia. American Midland Naturalist 151: 346-354.
10. Copeland C. 2005. Mountaintop Mining: Background on Current Controversies. Congressional Research Service. Report no. RS21421.
11. Druckenbrod DL, Dale VH, Olson LM. 2006. Comparing current and desired ecological conditions at a landscape scale in the Cumberland Plateau and Mountains, USA. Journal of Land Use Science 1: 169-189.
12. Dyer JM. 2006. Revisiting the deciduous forests of eastern North America. BioScience 56: 341-352.
13. Esch L, Hendryx M. 2011. Chronic cardiovascular disease mortality in mountaintop mining areas of central Appalachian states. The Journal of Rural Health 27: 350-357.
14. Farr TG, et al. 2007. The shuttle radar topography mission. Reviews of Geophysics 45 (art. RG2004). doi:10.1029/2005RG000183
15. Fox JF. 2009. Identification of sediment sources in forested watersheds with surface coal mining disturbance using carbon and nitrogen isotopes. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 45: 1273-1289.
16. Fox JF, Campbell JE. 2010. Terrestrial carbon disturbance from mountain-top mining increases lifecycle emissions for clean coal. Environmental Science and Technology 44: 2144-2149.
17. Fritz KM, Fulton S, Johnson BR, Barton CD, Jack JD, Word DA, Burke RA. 2010. Structural and functional characteristics of natural and constructed channels draining a reclaimed mountaintop removal and valley fill coal mine. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 29: 673-689.
18. Gesch D, Oimoen MJ, Greenlee SK, Nelson CA, Steuck M, Tyler D. 2002. The National Elevation Dataset. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 68: 5-11.
19. Groninger JW, Fillmore SD, Rathfon RA. 2006. Stand chara cteristics and productivity potential of Indiana surface mines reclaimed under SMCRA. Northern Journal of Applied Forestry 23: 94-99.
20. Harper CA, Guynn DC Jr. 1999. Factors affecting salamander density and distribution within four forest types in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Forest Ecology and Management 114: 245-252.
21. Harper KA, MacDonald SE, Burton PJ, Chen J, Brosofske KD, Saunders SC, Euskirchen ES, Roberts D, Jaiteh MS, Esseen P-A. 2005. Edge influence on forest structure and composition in fragmented landscapes. Conservation Biology 19: 768-782.
22. Hartman KJ, Kaller MD, Howell JW, Sweka JA. 2005. How much do valley fills influence headwater streams? Hydrobiologia 532: 91-102.
23. Hendryx M. 2009. Mortality from heart, respiratory, and kidney disease in coal mining areas of Appalachia. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 82: 243-249.
24. Hendryx M, Ahern MM. 2009. Mortality in Appalachian coal mining regions: The value of statistical life lost. Public Health Reports 124: 541-550.
25. Hinkle CR, McComb WC, Safley JM Jr, Schmalzer PA. 1993. Mixed meso-phytic forests. Pages 203-253 in Martin WH, Boyce SC, Echternacth AC, eds. Biodiversity of the Southeastern United States Upland Terrestrial Communities. Wiley.
26. Holl KD. 2002. Long-term vegetation recovery on reclaimed coal surface mines in the eastern USA. Journal of Applied Ecology 39: 960-970.
27. Hutchins RB, Blevins RL, Hill JD, White EH. 1976. The influence of soils and microclimate on vegetation of forested slopes in eastern Kentucky. Soil Science 121: 234-241.
28. Johnson BR, Haas A, Fritz KM. 2010. Use of spatially explicit physico-chemical data to measure downstream impacts of headwater stream disturbance. Water Resources Research 46 (art. W09526). doi:10.1029/2009WR008417
29. Lacki MJ, Schwierjohann JH. 2001. Day-Roost Characteristics of Northern Bats in Mixed Mesophytic Forest. Journal of Wildlife Management 65: 482-488.
30. Lemly AD. 2008. Aquatic hazard of selenium pollution from coal mining. Pages 167-183 in Fosdyke GB, ed. Coal Mining: Research, Technology and Safety. Nova Science.
31. Lindberg TT, Bernhardt ES, Bier R, Helton AM, Merola RB, Vengosh A, Di Giulio RT. 2011. Cumulative impacts of mountaintop mining on an Appalachian watershed. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108: 20929-20934.
32. Marshall CH, Pielke RA Sr, Steyaert LT, Willard DA. 2004. The impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the Florida peninsula sea breezes and warm season sensible weather. Monthly Weather Review 132: 28-52.
33. Maxwell AE, Strager MP. 2013. Assessing landform alterations induced by mountaintop mining. Natural Science 5: 229-237.
34. Maxwell AE, Strager MP, Yuill CB, Petty JT. 2012. Modeling critical forest habitat in the southern coal fields of West Virginia. Inter national Journal of Ecology 2012 (art. 182683). (8 February 2013; www.hindawi.com/ journals/ijeco/2012/182683) doi:10.1155/2012/182683
35. McEwan RW, Muller RN. 2011. Dynamics, diversity, and resource gradient relationships in the herbaceous layer of an old-growth Appalachian forest. Plant Ecology 212: 1179-1191.
36. Merricks TC, Cherry DS, Zipper CE, Currie RJ, Valenti TW. 2007. Coalmine hollow fill and settling pond influences on headwater streams in southern West Virginia, USA. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 129: 359-378.
37. Milici RC. 2000. Depletion of Appalachian coal reserves-How soon? International Journal of Coal Geology 44: 251-266.
38. Muller RN. 2003. Landscape patterns of change in coarse woody debris accumulation in an old-growth deciduous forest on the Cumberland Plateau, southeastern Kentucky. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 33: 763-769.
39. Palmer MA, et al. 2010. Mountaintop mining consequences. Science 327: 148-149.
40. Poff NL, Allan JD, Bain MB, Karr JR, Prestegaard KL, Richter BD, Sparks RE, Stromberg JC. 1997. The natural flow regime: A paradigm for river conservation and restoration. BioScience 47: 769-784.
41. Pond GJ. 2010. Patterns of Ephemeroptera taxa loss in Appalachian headwater streams (Kentucky, USA). Hydrobiologia 641: 185-201.
42. Pond GJ, Passmore ME, Borsuk FA, Reynolds L, Rose CJ. 2008. Downstream effects of mountaintop coal mining: Comparing biological conditions using family-and genus-level macroinvertebrate bioassessment tools. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 27: 717-737.
43. Ricketts TH, et al. 1999. Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America: A Conservation Assessment. Island Press.
44. Riitters K, Wickham J, O'Neill R, Jones B, Smith E. 2000. Global-scale patterns of forest fragmentation. Ecology and Society 4 (art. 3). (8 February 2013; www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol4/iss2/art3)
45. Rodrigue JA, Burger JA. 2004. Forest soil productivity of mined land in Midwestern and eastern coalfield regions. Soil Science Society of America Journal 68: 833-844.
46. Rubino DL, McCarthy BC. 2003. Evaluation of coarse woody debris and forest vegetation across topographic gradients in a southern Ohio forest. Forest Ecology and Management 183: 221-238.
47. Shriber JG. 2005. Arsenic in domestic well water and health in central Appalachia, USA. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 160: 327-341.
48. Small CJ, McCarthy BC. 2005. Relationship of understory diversity to soil nitrogen, topographic variation, and stand age in an eastern oak forest, USA. Forest Ecology and Management 217: 229-243.
49. Therivel R, Ross B. 2007. Cumulative effects assessment: Does scale matter? Environmental Impact Assessment Review 27: 365-385.
50. [USEPA] US Environmental Protection Agency. 2003. Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on Mountaintop Mining/Valley Fills in Appalachia-2003. USEPA. (20 February 2013; www.epa.gov/region03/mtntop/eis2003. htm)
51. -. 2005. Mountaintop Mining/Valley Fills in Appalachia: Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. USEPA. Report no. EPA 9-03-R-05002.
52. -. 2011. The Effects of Mountaintop Mines and Valley Fills on Aquatic Ecosystems of the Central Appalachian Coalfields. USEPA. Report no. EPA/600/R-09/138F.
53. Weakland CA, Wood PB. 2005. Cerulean warbler (Dendrocica cerulea) microhabitat and landscape-level habitat characteristics in southern West Virginia. The Auk 122: 497-508.
54. Weathers KC, Cadenasso ML, Pickett STA. 2001. Forest edges as nutrient and pollutant concentrators: Potential synergisms between fragmentation, forest canopies and the atmosphere. Conservation Biology 15: 1506-1514.
55. Whittaker RH. 1956. Vegetation of the Great Smoky Mountains. Ecological Monographs 26: 1-80.
56. Wickham JD, Riitters KH, Wade TG, Coan M, Homer C. 2007. The effect of Appalachian mountaintop mining on interior forest. Landscape Ecology 22: 179-187.
57. Williams JM. 2003. Impacts on Terrestrial and Streamside Herpetofauna by Mountaintop Removal Mining in Southern West Virginia. PhD Dissertation. West Virginia University, Morgantown.
58. Wood PB, Williams JM. 2013. Impact of valley fills on streamside salamanders in southern West Virginia. Journal of Herpetology 47: 119-125.
59. Wood PB, Edwards JW, Weakland CA, Balcerzak MJ, Chamblin HD. 2001. Terrestrial Vertebrate (Breeding Songbird, Raptor, Small Mammal, Herpetofaunal) Populations of Forested and Reclaimed Sites. US Environmental Protection Agency.
60. Wood PB, Bosworth SB, Dettmers R. 2006. Cerulean warbler abundance and occurrence relative to large-scale edge and habitat characteristics. Condor 108: 154-165.
61. Zipper CE, Burger JA, Skousen JG, Angel PN, Barton CD, Davis V, Franklin JA. 2011. Restoring forests and associated ecosystem services on Appalachian coal surface mines. Environmental Management 47: 751-765.
62. Zulig KJ, Hendryx M. 2011. Health-related quality of life among central Appalachian residents in mountaintop mining counties. American Journal of Public Health 101: 848-853.