Communities, Welcome to Zeb Mountain, Tennessee
“It just killed me that my home place was getting ready to be torn up like that.” – Ann League, resident near Zeb mountain
Friday, October 19th, 2007
Zeb Mountain has sustained rural communities for generations. The mountain is now home to the largest cross-ridge mining operation in Tennessee. In this new form of mountaintop removal, the company will attempt to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. When mining is finished, they will try to pile the rock back up in the shape of the former mountaintop. In the meantime, the rock will be stored on adjacent abandoned strip mines.
More than 100 homes are located within a half mile of the mining area, and an elementary school is located less than a mile from mine. Residents worry that blasting, truck traffic, flooding or a landslide could damage life or property near the mine site. Endangered and threatened species living in the area, including the gray bat, the red cockaded woodpecker and the blackside dace, have suffered devastation from habitat loss and increased stream sedimentation caused by mining.
Mining has continued on Zeb Mountain despite lawsuits filed by Appalachian Voices and other environmental and community groups. The state has issued the mining company several notices of violations for infractions including failure to control sediment running into a nearby stream and building a containment pond (which holds the arsenic, selenium, lead, lime and mercury-polluted waters left over from cleaning coal) outside of the permit area.
Ann League, a member of Save Our Cumberland Mountains who built her dream home near Zeb Mountain, recalls the moment when she learned that mountaintop removal mining was going to begin near her property. “It just killed me that my home place – my family hadn’t been there for hundreds of years, but I still consider it my home place – was getting ready to be torn up like that.”
Click here to watch videos about Zeb Mountain and learn about the communities that live nearby.
Summary submitted by Caroline Monday courtesy of Appalachian Voices. Photo courtesy of Southwings.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
this is a test comment
October 7th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Y’all are running an excellent and useful website.
However, I think you need to fact check the claim that the red cockaded woodpecker is impacted by the Zeb Mountain mine.
those birds prefer Long-Leaf and other Pine dominated forests.
The forests that were on top of Zeb were hardwoods, and what remains on the flanks of the mountain are also dominated by hardwoods.
As far as I know the last RC Woodpecker to live in TN was down on the Ocoee Ranger District of the Cherokee National Forest in the southeast corner of the state. (and a coupla hundred miles from Zeb Mountain)
If y’all can find USFWS documentation of RC Woodpeckers anywhere near Zeb Mountain (or anywhere in the North Cumberlands) I will buy you beers.
I realize this is a minor point, but it is the kind of thing that the industry defenders will seize to claim that we don’t know what we are talking about.