On October 17-18, 2008 one student from SSHS Envirothon was able to attend the Youth Sentimental Conference at Chief Logan State Park, and here is what he said about it.
It was a conference that was organized by the DEP and the DNR. This year the conference was used to give us the facts about surface mining then they allowed us to form a our own opinion on whether it was bad or not.
Friday evening we attended a program on Native American history presented by Doug Wood.
Saturday we went to Coal Mac Inc. which is a strip mine in Logan County. Coal Mac is one of the nation’s leaders in reclamation efforts after the mining is done. There we learned surface mining its pros and cons. Some of the positive effects about strip mining. It takes less time to mine the coal some strip mines would take years to complete if deep mined. It is cheaper. It is safer than deep mining. Some of the negative effects about strip mining. When the rock and such is blasted it is taken out of its compact state and it swells up to 30% this is where u get valley fill. Also it destroys possible habitats for animals. Takes from the beauty of the land. then we learned about different types of reclamation and uses of the land post mining.
We then went to chief Logan state park and participated in a GPS activity. We visited the wildlife center and museum in the park. Saturday evening we watched a power point on job opportunities within the DEP. on Sunday there was a motivational program.
SS
Sounds like a lot of fun.