Mountaintop Removal Affecting Bird Populations

This is just out from the U.S. Geological Survey. Mountaintop mining is not only changing the landscape, it is, unsurprisingly, changing the ecology of the Appalachians. According to a new study published in Landscape Ecology, songbirds that thrive in forested areas are in decline in areas adjacent to reclaimed mountaintop removal mines, while birds that live in shrub lands are increasing in these areas.

            The results make sense on the face of things. Even when MTR mines are reclaimed, they are mostly large grassland areas devoid of trees. And as you can surmise, it will take a while for trees to take root, grow, and reach maturity in reclaimed mines. Most optimistically the forests will grow to maturity in the mines in a matter of a few decades, but in most cases it will probably take longer.

            Here are some details from the USGS news release:

The study evaluated the bird communities in the forest that remains around the reclaimed habitats in West Virginia and Kentucky. Researchers found that even small amounts of forest lost to mineland or grassland within a landscape resulted in lower abundance for the majority of bird species in the forest that remained adjacent to the reclaimed lands.  Declines in abundance were detected for 12 species of forest interior birds and 11 species of interior edge birds including species of conservation concern such as Cerulean Warbler and Worm-eating Warbler.  But the numbers of some species did go up.

“Some shrubland species, for example the brown thrasher and song sparrow, or forest generalist species such as the brown-headed cowbird and the yellow-throated vireo, did have a positive response to the loss of forest and the gain in mineland or grassland, but most bird species did not,” said Doug Becker, professor of biology at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and senior author of the study.  “If managers want to take actions that may benefit sensitive, forest-dependent species, they need to minimize the amount of forest lost in a landscape.”

A reclaimed mountaintop mine. No trees here. photo: ovec.org

The Cerulean Warbler, one of the bird species in decline around the mountaintop removal mines photo: nc.audubon.org

Other ecological effects have been documented, including the recent finding that the mining was threatening rare endemic crayfish. And it is needless to say that for years and decades we will be finding even more effects that mountaintop removal coal mining has had on the lives of Appalachians and the environment of their mountains.

Mountains that have not been removed for their coal, where many songbirds want to live

Pulling the Plug on Mountaintop Removal Health Research

The saying goes that coal keeps the lights on, but in at least this case the lights are going out. Apparently without much fanfare, the Obama administration pulled the plug on a research project being conducted by the USGS that had been looking into the health effects from mountaintop removal.

            In February of last year the USGS Energy Resources Program discontinued the funding for a study of the air quality in Artie, West Virginia, a very small community that has the misfortune to be surrounded by mountaintop removal mines. You can see Artie pinpointed below in the Google map. The expansive blotches across the landscape are the mountaintop mines.

The study is in its second year and had already resulted in some better understanding of how these large mines hurt the air quality around them and subsequently hurt the health of nearby residents. Folks who live close to mountaintop mining have higher rates of respiratory diseases, including lung cancer.

            The team working on this research has been told that they will be investigating health concerns over fracking. As all agencies have to prioritize their activities around limited budgets, this shift might be seen as a wise move, as fracking, being widespread across the country, has the potential to affect a lot more people than those living in Appalachia around mountaintop removal operations.

            But some folks think that politics may have played a part in the scientific switcheroo, among them Michael Hendryx. Hendryx is a former West Virginia University researcher who has more than two dozen peer-reviewed papers published that establish a link between mountaintop removal and poor health.

            Is this politics or prioritizing? The USGS is continuing other research on MTR, so I really can’t say. I just know it’s a shame that funding gets pulled on needed research, no matter what the reason might be. On the other hand, the science that has been done so far shows mountaintop removal to be harmful to salamanders, fish, people, and other creatures that live in the mountains. We know enough already to see that it should go on no longer.

More Bad News If You're a Fish: Mountaintop Removal Is Not Good For You

Although I’ve never been a sport fisherman, one of the things I remember from growing up in West Virginia was the enthusiasm so many of my friends and neighbors had for fishing. Lake fishing and trout fishing were a big deal, with lots of folks out on their boats or standing in their waders waiting for that next strike.

            Well, there is some new research out that demonstrates that mountaintop removal jeopardizes this pastime. Rivers and streams affected by mountaintop mining have only about a third as many fish as rivers and streams that have not been affected by the massive mining technique. Affected streams also have fewer than half as many species of fish than unaffected streams. These are the findings of research conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. The title of the paper, published this week in the journal Freshwater Science, is Temporal changes in taxonomic and functional diversity of fish assemblages downstream from mountaintop mining.

            Some of the data used in the study was collected between 1999 and 2001 by a team from Pennsylvania State University. The USGS collected data for the study from 2010 to 2011. Other recent research had also found fish populations to be negatively affected by mountaintop removal.[i] And still other research found a link between the surface mining of coal and the extirpation of stream benthic organisms.[ii] To me, this research just points out the obvious. Anybody who has spent time around the sulfurous streams around surface mines will tell you that you won’t find many fish in them, and sometimes not much other life, either.

            As with other studies, this scientific work found heightened levels of selenium in the mining affected streams. Previous research, mandated by state legislation in West Virginia, found that high levels of selenium in streams were associated with deformities of fish larvae. In streams with especially high levels of selenium up to 20 percent of some fish species had deformities. This research dovetails with the USGS findings. If a lot of your offspring have deformities, a lot of those deformed offspring will not make it to maturity.

            How much more research is needed to convince people that mountaintop removal is harmful? I fear that nothing besides the depletion of all the viable coal seam in Appalachia will bring about the end to large coal companies blowing up our beautiful mountains. The paper’s press release from the USGS is here. And a hat tip to Ken Ward and his Coal Tattoo blog where I found out about this scientific study.

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[i] Hopkins, Robert L., and Jordan C. Roush. "Effects Of Mountaintop Mining On Fish Distributions In Central Appalachia." Ecology Of Freshwater Fish 22.4 (2013): 578-586. Environment Complete. Web. 27 Sept. 2013

[ii] Cormier, Susan M., et al. "Assessing Causation Of The Extirpation Of Stream Macroinvertebrates By A Mixture Of Ions." Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry 32.2 (2013): 277-287. Environment Complete. Web. 3 July 2014.