Protecting bees from mountaintop removal: close, but no cigar, Kentucky
Posted February 18, 2010 in Health and the Environment
Add mountaintop removal to the threats facing bees and other pollinators. The AP reports that Kentucky’s state legislature is considering a bill encouraging coal companies to mitigate the effects of mountaintop removal mining on bees by planting bee-friendly vegetation on “reclaimed” mountaintop removal sites.
As I marvel at this rare opportunity to blog about both MTR and bees in a single post, let’s unpack this concept.
- Enhancing bee habitat: GOOD for bees, people, and the environment. Habitat loss is a key factor in the worldwide decline of pollinators, which threatens the health of ecosystems and our food supply.
- Mountaintop removal mining: BAD for bees, people, and the environment. It doesn't get much more disruptive than liquidating a landform and dumping the toxic results into nearby waterways.
- Enhancing bee habitat only after allowing it to be blown to be smithereens: STILL PRETTY BAD for bees, people, and the environment. We wouldn't have to try, futilely, to reclaim the biological diversity of Appalachian lands if we weren’t blowing the tops off mountains in the first place.
As a dozen scientists concluded in a comprehensive assessment of MTR impacts in Science, when it comes to Appalachian ecosystems, an ounce of mountaintop removal prevention turns out to be worth a pound of supposed “cure.” The authors of that study pointed to "the preponderance of scientific evidence that impacts [of MTR] are pervasive and irreversible and that mitigation cannot compensate for losses."
In other words, there's no such thing as true "reclamation" or "restoration" of MTR sites. For bees, and everyone else, it would be far preferable not to allow mountaintop removal in the first place.
