ESPM 50AC Final Paper
Introduction
Appalachia is a 205,000-square-mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains stretching from southern New York to northern Mississippi. It is home to more than 25 million people.
Appalachia Mountains are rich in natural resources, containing an abundant number of coal, timber, oil, gas, and water (Daugneaux 1981). These natural resources 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 (Appalachia's Economy). However, the mining practice used to extract coal in Appalachia called mountaintop removal mining brings serious environmental health threat. The radical strip-mining process 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 (Mining: Destroying Mountains). The waste dumped contaminates drinking water, destroys wild habitat, buries mountain streams, and kills wildlife, bringing devastating damages to the entire communities. There are four distinctive people groups that are involved in the mountaintop removing process, the Appalachians, the coal companies, environmental groups and the government. In this paper I will identify the approach to resource management of these four groups in this mountaintop-removal mining case respectively and compare their approaches and find how different interests affect the way natural resources have been understood, used, and allocated.
Analysis
One group is composed of the Appalachians. Appalachians had a strong sense of place that they called home. In the book Something’s Rising, Silas House and Jason Howard collected narratives that articulated the strong relationship between nature and people. The narrators
Appalachia is a 205,000-square-mile region that follows the spine of the Appalachian Mountains stretching from southern New York to northern Mississippi. It is home to more than 25 million people.
Appalachia Mountains are rich in natural resources, containing an abundant number of coal, timber, oil, gas, and water (Daugneaux 1981). These natural resources 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 (Appalachia's Economy). However, the mining practice used to extract coal in Appalachia called mountaintop removal mining brings serious environmental health threat. The radical strip-mining process 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 (Mining: Destroying Mountains). The waste dumped contaminates drinking water, destroys wild habitat, buries mountain streams, and kills wildlife, bringing devastating damages to the entire communities. There are four distinctive people groups that are involved in the mountaintop removing process, the Appalachians, the coal companies, environmental groups and the government. In this paper I will identify the approach to resource management of these four groups in this mountaintop-removal mining case respectively and compare their approaches and find how different interests affect the way natural resources have been understood, used, and allocated.
Analysis
One group is composed of the Appalachians. Appalachians had a strong sense of place that they called home. In the book Something’s Rising, Silas House and Jason Howard collected narratives that articulated the strong relationship between nature and people. The narrators
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