9:59 am Green Around the Hills: MTR like a Ponzi scheme
By Jennie Young
An apt metaphor for the 500 Appalachian mountaintops already destroyed by mountaintop removal mining could be “Ponzi scheme.” A Ponzi promises, shows a degree of success, and then fails.
Before each of the mountaintops was permitted, the coal company seeking permit was required to put up bond money for after-operations reclamation. Should the company not stay around to reclaim the site, the bond money is for that purpose. Abandonment is common but the bond money is never adequate. Abandoned MTR sites are so numerous now that the Department of the Interior no longer tries to account for them all. That’s the tail end of the Ponzi metaphor.
This is one hook used by the industry to justify MTR: the value of flat land for present and future economic development. They point with pride to StoneCrest Golf Course in Floyd County, Ky., which is beautiful but not likely to be replicated very often. The astronomical cost of hauling 600,000 cubic yards of topsoil to provide a six-inch sod for the destroyed mountaintop is in itself overwhelming. Someone calculated that would involve a trip up the mountain for 38,500 large dump trucks. A visitor to StoneCrest told me the view from there is a heart-rending expanse of other leveled, but unreclaimed, mountaintops. Might that impact even the most insensitive golfer’s pleasure?
Almost all efforts to reclaim the predictably unstable sites involving any heavy buildings is proving problematic. The federal prison in Kentucky’s Martin County is $60 million over budget. It settled, cracked and sank, locally earning the nickname Sink Sink. The few shopping centers on rebuilt sites usually show the same propensity.
I’d better rethink my Ponzi metaphor. I can’t even find the early glowing successes necessary to support it. Still though, it’s about promises and disappointment.
Only three percent of former MTR sites show evidence of economic development. Another eight percent show maybe a few hay bales or a park bench. Eighty-nine percent remain unreclaimed, looking at best like highway medians and at worst like moonscapes. Obviously supply already far exceeds demand, hundreds of times over. For perspective, spend a few minutes on Appalachian Voices’ ilovemountains.org website. You can see a satellite view of any of the 500 by clicking on “Learn More,” then “Reclamation Fail,” and scroll down.
How does it happen? Well, the coal company typically declares bankruptcy and/or sells the site. They walk away from the toxic hazard they created, leaving behind, at best, inadequate bond money to deal with it. Then they start up a new company under another name and start all over again elsewhere. It’s hard to find out what really transpires and who’s responsible. Making sense of it all comes hard. We’d better decide soon if this is what we can live with.
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