In the shadow of national outcry about West Virginia water poisoned with coal processing chemicals, a former West Virginia coal miner named Joe Stanley is warning that the water has been polluted and likely unsafe to drink for decades.
It’s another reminder that the coal- and gas-heavy business-as-usual approach to energy production endangers our nation’s water supply, and has been doing so for a very, very long time.
Forget for a moment about water pollution from coal- and gas-based power production. If we look only at the water draw used to produce electricity in the U.S., it accounts for almost half of all water draw in the United States. The U.S. draws about 410 billion gallons of water per day. Of that, about 200 billion gallons per day go toward energy production. Coal power plants, nuke plants, natural gas plants… they account for more water draw than even agriculture.
That’s without even taking into account the water rendered useless or toxic because of pollutants added to the U.S. water supply from mining and processing coal, or pumping millions of gallons of chemical-rich water into the ground for hydrofracking.
According to Stanley, mining operations have been dumping toxic waste into unlined waste pools and even old coal mines for a very long time. Mines, being underground, often have to have water constantly pumped out. When the mine is no longer in use, it fills with ground water again. The same ground water people use for their daily lives. The water they drink. Where does the toxic waste in the mines go? Into the ground water.
Is Mr. Stanely right? Is water pollution from coal mining operations really that rampant?
The Environmental Protection Agency offers some substantiating evidence for this type of claim. In a 2013 environmental assessment, the EPA identified 132 cases where rivers, streams, and lakes were harmed as a result of waste from coal-fired power plants. They also identified 123 cases where the waste contaminated ground water sources. Even more disturbing is that about?three quarters of the 1,727 U.S. coal mines haven’t been inspected for adherence to water pollution laws in five years. Or to put that into perspective, there’s been enough time for folks to fall in love, get married, have a kid and send that kid to kindergarten in the space of time a majority of U.S. coal mines have had their last inspection. Hopefully the kid didn’t grow up near one of those coal mines.
Our business-as-usual, coal-heavy power production has run roughshod over our nation’s water supply for decades, taking up or polluting far more than its share of this critical resource. As our nation faces increasing droughts and communities around the U.S. are facing water shortages, we have one more reason to think twice about using coal as a fuel source. There are far less water-intensive sources of power, starting with wind and solar.
Edited by DH.
