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===Mountaintop removal and streams===
[[Mountaintop removal]] (MTR) mining involves the blasting off the tops of mountains to reach the coal seams below, with the millions of tons of former mountains pushed into stream valleys. MTR has buried nearly 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams, contaminated drinking water, impaired water quality for river recreation, increased water treatment costs for industry, displaced some communities, and increased susceptibility to flooding for others. An EPA environmental impact found that 724 miles (1,165 km) of Appalachian streams were buried by valley fills between 1985 to 2001, and that streams near valley fills from mountaintop removal contain high levels of minerals in the water and decreased aquatic biodiversity.<ref name="epaPeis">[http://www.epa.gov/region03/mtntop/index.htm Mountaintop Mining/Valley Fills in Appalachia: Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement], U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed March 2008.</ref>
The 2012 ''Environmental Science and Technology'' study [http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es301144q?prevSearch=bernhardt&searchHistoryKey= "How Many Mountains Can We Mine? Assessing the Regional Degradation of Central Appalachian Rivers by Surface Coal Mining"] concluded that decades of mountaintop-removal mining in Appalachia may have harmed aquatic life along more than 1,700 miles of streams in southern West Virginia. Mining companies have converted 5% of the region to mountaintop mines, and the resulting water pollution has caused so many sensitive species to vanish that 22% of streams may qualify as impaired under state criteria.<ref>Emily S. Bernhardt, Brian D. Lutz, Ryan S. King, John P. Fay, Catherine E. Carter, Ashley M. Helton, David Campagna, and John Amos, [http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es301144q?prevSearch=bernhardt&searchHistoryKey= "How Many Mountains Can We Mine? Assessing the Regional Degradation of Central Appalachian Rivers by Surface Coal Mining,"] ''Environmental Science and Technology,'' July 12, 2012.</ref>
==Coal Processing==