Originally Posted by Bamaman1:
The coal from that Peabody strip mine went straight into TVA's Paradise Steam Plant so we could get the benefits of the electricity produced. It was one of the first places I ever saw one of the 300' tall drag lines used to strip the top soil down to the vein of coal. Then, the dirt was returned to the ground and smoothed out.
My thoughts about strip mining in NW Alabama are that they may leave behind vast areas that could be planted into farms for cattle and hay. Have you ever seen the land from Tuscumbia to Red Bay? It was logged and left in shambles. Much of NW Alabama along the Mississippi State line is like this. Would government controlled strip mining actually improve such lands?
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I would argue that "smoothed out" is a relative term. Still looks like a war zone to me. Yep, that coal, or at least a lot of it, was sold to TVA.(TVA did not mine it ), However, that is just an example of the effects of strip mining that we can see on a Sunday drive, but it is happening all over the country, in the Appellation Mtns, and elsewhere. TVA gets most of it's coal from the Powder Basin open pit mines, and I have not seen them, but chances are they ain't pretty, and no, I am no fan of coal - I wasn't back in 52 when my dad was building Widdows Creek, but I didn't know exactly why back then, now I know why.
Question really is, is that what we want Alabama the Beautiful (isn't that what they call the state?) to look like Paradise, West Va, or even the Powder Basin ? , and all for what ? For the time being, there seems to be plenty of oil, hell, we're refining and exporting gasoline and diesel. Is that what we want for our state?