Protecting the Cumberland Plateau

Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau, covering an area the size of Connecticut, is renowned for its biodiversity and expanses of unbroken forest. The plateau and the rivers fed by its headwater streams harbor one of the highest concentrations of endangered species in North America. The northern plateau also provides vital breeding habitat for almost a third of all surviving cerulean warblers—migratory songbirds that have seen their populations decline by more than 70 percent in the past three decades.

Shielding Special Places from Destructive Coal Mining

SELC is seeking to shield special places on the coal-rich Cumberland Plateau from the devastating impacts of mountaintop removal and similarly destructive mining practices. One avenue we have pursued—and will continue to pursue—is to petition the U.S. Office of Surface Mining to designate certain ecologically sensitive areas as unsuitable for surface mining, as allowed by federal law.

Places in need of such protection include the Royal Blue and Sundquist wildlife management areas―state-owned lands that are home to a remarkable array of rare plant and animal species, including some of the highest densities of cerulean warblers ever recorded. The Tennessee Valley Authority and energy companies own rights to coal deposits below these lands, and under this designation, they would still have access to coal reserves through less-destructive underground mining.

Keeping these areas off-limits to surface mining would also help protect the watershed of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, which flows through the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. The river is abundant in aquatic diversity and provides habitat for many at-risk species, but it also suffers from pollution resulting from decades of mining activity upstream.

Law and Policy Tools

Petitioning the federal government to set aside special places as unsuitable for surface mining is just one of the vehicles we are using to protect the Cumberland Plateau. Working with the National Parks Conservation Association, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Center for Biological Diversity, we are also seeking to overturn a misguided policy that has allowed federal agencies to ignore impacts on endangered and threatened species when approving new mining operations [See Mountaintop Removal Mining]. In addition, we are blocked a change in federal mining regulations that essentially eliminated stream protections.