June 2, 2010
Huntington WV 25701
Rebecca Woddard
President, American Rivers
Rebecca:
Your research in naming the Gauley River one of the ten most endangered rivers because of mountaintop removal surface mining was next to nothing.
The Gauley River watershed lies in parts of Nicholas, Clay, Webster, Fayette, Greenbrier, and Pocahontas Counties WV.
There is only one MTR mining operation in the entire watershed, the one on Twentymile Creek watershed , not Peters Creek.. It is located in Clay and Nicholas Counties and is tiny in terms of production and acreage disturbed compared to the total in five counties: Boone, Kanawha, Logan, Mingo, and Raleigh Counties WV. The operation is not a true MTR, its life is very limited, and it poses no significant threat to the Gauley. Moreover, Twentymile empties into a stream that empties a few miles downstream into the Gauley at Belva which is several miles downstream from the segment of the Gauley where whitewater rafting is so popular. Belva is only some 8 miles from the mouth of the Gauley at Gauley Bridge.
There are comparatively very little coal reserves in the Gauley watershed which can feasibly be mined by the MTR or any other surface mining method. This is because the geology is very different than that found within the latter group of counties and three adjacent ones that together are commonly called the Southern WV Coalfield. The Kanawha Formation outcrops widely in these five counties and contains all the coal seams in its upper section that are MTR mined in that coalfield. The coal seams MTR mined are thick, numerous, and lie relatively close to each other vertically, as opposed to different coal seams widely occurring in the Gauley watershed which are thin, few, and do not lie relatively close to each other vertically.
This combination of natural occurrences plus the low sulfur content of the coal seams are the main reasons why MTR mining is economical in the Southern WV Coal Field. It is absent within the Gauley watershed except in the immediate vicinity of the Twentymile mine.
The comments I have made on geology and MTR mining can be verified by contacting the West Virginia Geological Survey and WV DEP.
If Gauley River ranks among the ten most endangered in your opinion, the rivers in this country are in much better shape than I had supposed.
I'm sorry to say you are guilty of irresponsible journalism and badly misleading the public, especially the supporters of American Rivers which include me.
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David Morrison June 2, 2010
