[Coach_Owens87]

IMO reclaimed surface mines help prevent flooding more than they cause it. With the drainage systems used in today surface mining, runoff is diverted around the hillside and through a series of ditches and ponds before going into the streams. Concerning animal life, on our mining property it seems to be thriving with bears, deer, turkey, rabbits, squirrels, fox, and coyotes and various types of birds. Vegation takes a little longer, all of our reclaimed sites seem to be doing very well.

As for Buffalo Creek and Martin County disasters those were slurry impoundments which are primarily used by deep mines and has nothing to do with surface mining. One way that you could look at it is that neither would have happened if we were only surface mining.

The problem with this is that its only your opinion, and the scientific facts disagree with what you are saying.

Not all surface mines increase flooding, but the majority due, as pointed out in this study.

"We can say that MTR/VF mining can increase downstream flood risks, and that there is a very high probability that this has occurred and will occur downstream of some fills. On balance, results suggest that an increase in peak flows is more likely than a decrease or no change. However, our results also show that there is likely to be a great deal of variation, and that at a significant number of sites no increase in peak flows or flood risk will occur."

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:4Loz...clnk&gl=us

This study is probably a little biased, and lean towards the coal industry as it comes from the university of kentucky, and they have some partnerships with friends of coal. But this was the only study I found that wasn't an abstract.