[Old School]

Every issue will have articles released that are very one sided or misleading, I wont disagree there. And im sure that the article I read

Im sure that Mr. Harden is a great person, and it's great that he has accomplished the things he has done is his life. But where not debating his life, were debating MTR. I'm glad he believes the water quality has improved in his community, but that doesn't happen very often. There are hundreds of cases of wells drying up orbeing polluted, and it has been proven that water downstream from mine sites typically have high levels of toxins, and decreased aquatic life.

Winning awards for reclamation doesn't mean much to me. The awards are given from mine companies, there is no way they can put the land back to the state is was before mining, so such awards are meaningless to me.
Destroying thousands of acres of mixed mesophytic forest, and then putting in a small wetlands area, and planting a couple hundred trees does not offset the damage caused during mining, and does not impress me, or change my mind on MTR.

I have been to many active mine sites, I actually visited one today. I had to take photos for a humanities course I am taking.

I oppose the methods used for creating roads in this region, becuase as you already stated it uses the same methods as MTR, although roads don't cause near as much damage as MTR sites. They're re-routing a section of KY 15 in Breathitt county just outside of Jackson, the new route is going to be 4 lanes, and cuts off about 1 mile from the previous route. I dont think this new road was really necessary, and it's a really big eye soar, which makes me hate driving that route when I go to Lex.

I realize this discussion is not about Mr. Harden, but your opinion (at no fault of your own)of him was based on a one sided article by Mr. Ward, and I wanted to give you a chance to consider what was actually said by Mr. Harden.

I totally disagree with you about the water quailty downstream of mine sites, I know of several mining operations where the water quailty is just as good or better than it was before mining started. We have mined areas where the water quailty was deficient prior to mining and was still low quailty after mining was completed.

I will give you credit, your the first person that I've heard who is anti-coal to say that highway construction uses the same methods as surface mining. Here's one big difference between road construction and surface mining, next time you drive by a construction site look at how they control the silt and water run off, you should see a black silt fence at the edge of the distrubed area with a few straw bails placed here and there, that's it, that's their silt control. Before the first tree can be cut, before the first foot of road can be built a surface mine has to construct a sediment pond or ponds designed for the size of the hollows their located in, and ditches have to be constructed below all distrubed areas.

Do you realize how many acres on the average are distrubed per mile of a 4 lane highway? Try around 36 acres per mile, that's based on a average width of 300 feet.