By Kristie Brown
We all learned the heartbreaking side of coal mining earlier this year when 29 miners lost their lives in the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia. At best, coal mining is a dangerous job, and the mine wasn't kept up to federal safety guidelines. One might wonder why the mines owned by such companies were allowed to continue to operate when so many safety violations had been discovered in them repeatedly.
Obviously this mining conglomerate is more worried about their bottom line than they were the safety of their workers. In addition, this same company is being taken to court for its many violations of the Clean Water Act as their mines continue to pump polluted water into the lakes and rivers surrounding the mines which water filtration companies are struggling to clean up to acceptable levels.
One of the metals that mines has been found to be pumping into the water resources is extremely high levels of aluminum. These high levels have been shown to cause bone and brain diseases, such as Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's, and are very dangerous to people who have kidney disease as well. The levels that have been found are also causing the death of many fish and other aquatic life. Other things that the water tests high for due to the practices of mining companies and their subsidiaries, are high concentrations of iron, suspended solids, and acidity.
Numerous environmental groups, such as West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and the Sierra Club's West Virginia Chapter, are alleging that company mines accumulated about 3,300 days of clean water permit violations during a period from April, 2008 through December, 2009. If that isn't bad enough, the groups allege that the company has done little, if anything, to correct the problem since that time.
People all over the U.S. are beginning to become concerned about the water resources that we'll be leaving to our children and grandchildren. Is it fair for us to turn our heads and look the other way as pollution pours out of the mines and into our waterways? And is it fair to run up huge financial deficits each time a water filtration company has to be hired to clean up after these operations? After all, if this is how we handle the situation, it will only get worse, and all we'll be doing is leaving our problems on the shoulders of the next generation.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kristie_Brown
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