Visualizing Extraction (original) (raw)

Materializing Exposure: Developing an Indexical Method to Visualize Health Hazards Related to Fossil Fuel Extraction

Engaging Science, Technology, and Society

How can STS researchers collaborate with communities to design environmental monitoring devices that more effectively express their experiences and address gaps in regulation? This paper describes and shows the results of a novel method of visualizing environmental emissions of corrosive gases such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) exposure using photographic paper. H2S is a neurotoxic and flammable gas that smells like rotten eggs and is frequently associated with oil and natural gas extraction. Communities living with oil and gas development in Wyoming report odors of rotten eggs and describe symptoms of H2S exposure. H2S is recognized as an acute and chronic threat to human and environmental health and oil and gas companies are required to have plans in place to prevent and respond to accidental, high concentration releases of H2S. They are not, however, required to monitor, report or prevent routine daily emissions. Yet 15-25% of the oil and gas wells in the US are predicted to contain ...

Images in struggle: Photographs of Colorado coal camps

1994

Visual images produced as elements of material culture constitute a remarkable and under‐utilized resource for sociological investigation. This investigation of historic photographs of Colorado coal‐mining communities develops methods to analyze photos as sociological data. The coal industry was the site of sometimes violent struggle between workers and management. The labor intensive nature of mining and its location in under populated areas led to the development of company towns. Miners homes became contested terrain. Cameras were employed to create images to correspond to existing beliefs, values, and ideological definitions. By carefully examining photographs of miners houses we discover new meanings of the social facts governing the coal‐miners’ world.

Making Visible Alternative Futures on Mine-Scarred Lands in Appalachia

The Southern Coalfields of West Virginia is a region undergoing extraordinary levels of change through the practice of mountaintop removal mining . At the core of the disturbance is northern McDowell County in deep southern West Virginia, an economically and ecologically compromised area long dependent on extractive industries, and a venue of ongoing degradation. Mountaintop removal involves the excavation of a coal seam from the top down, rather than traditional tunnel mining. As 'developable' flat land, the remnant landscape is perceived to provide economic development opportunities for local communities. The 'site' (6000 acres) of this project is a reclaimed surface mine north of the town of Welch WV and on the border between Wyoming and McDowell Counties including the Indian Ridge Industrial Park (600 acres). This project proposes the positive reuse of the landscape through the installation of alternative energy infrastructure: biomass, wind and solar; and a phased plan for integration of mixed-use development.

Picture this: visual explorations of wellbeing in a contaminated landscape

Cultures of wellbeing: methods, place, policy, 2016

This book chapter focuses on one aspect of my doctoral fieldwork: the use of participatory photography and photo-elicitation interviews within a mine-affected community in Cambodia. It documents some of the trials, tribulations and triumphs of utilising a participatory and visual approach in the assessment of wellbeing. Ultimately it concludes that participatory photography provides a three-dimensional approach to discussions about what people need for life to be good that encapsulates the material, relational and subjective dimensions of wellbeing, as well as people’s past, present and future aspirations, all in the space of one image.

Making Steel, Making Prosperity, Making Pollution, Making Images: The Environmental Photography of Steel Mills

Environmental impacts of steelmaking are felt in communities where steel is made and beyond, from dramatic changes in landscapes to smoke-darkened horizons to contaminated ponds. For photographers as well as other artists—painters, poets, songwriters—those impacts provide an opportunity to use their creative works to draw public attention to ecological conditions at operating and abandoned mills. This article explores how three American photographers—Masumi Hayashi, John Pfahl, Ruth Dusseault—used their images to raise social consciousness of steel-related environmental problems. It finds that despite differences in their photographic techniques, each has created a potent marriage of aesthetics with social commentary and a public agenda through documenting unwelcome and welcome changes in communities affected by steelmaking.

Material matters at the coalface: a socially-engaged art enquiry into the politics of coal, space and place

2017

Material Matters at the Coalface" questions our human relationships with geological matter through a socially-engaged art enquiry into the politics of coal, space and place. Activating coal as "vibrant matter", this project works with brown coal as a medium to investigate the role that coal plays in Latrobe Valley mining communities. This project combined socially-engaged, participatory practice and practice-led artistic research with an ethnographic sensibility to investigate the community's response to living in, and among coal. It aimed to create dialogue and better understand the complex web of changes affecting communities, who are in transition and impacted by the closure of coal-fired power stations and sweeping changes in power generation. The research findings are presented through a written dissertation and durable records of the "COAL" graduate exhibition, which was staged at the VCA Art Space in Melbourne in February 2017. Unearthing coal's performative material qualities, this exhibition put the gritty materiality of locally collected brown coal to work as an aesthetic medium in a series of visual artworks, performances and installations encompassing three interconnected galleries and 210sm 2 of space. Questioning the physical, psychic and social relationships humans have with non-human matter coal, the "COAL" exhibition also included documentation of performative acts of labour, such as sweeping and cleaning, which were originally performed in public spaces, neglected historical buildings and empty deserted shops in Morwell. The resultant body of artefacts, performances and installations reflect a sustained material engagement with brown coal and socially-engaged arts practice with Latrobe Valley communities over the last three years. The creative works are analysed and contextualised by drawing on a lineage of artists, writers and philosophers from the intersecting fields of social practice, art and anthropology, who have explored the political ecology of geological matter and the environment. This investigation of coal's role in the local community of Morwell demonstrates the increasing ecological impact of human beings' commodified relationships to nature, place and matter. Departing from these site-responsive concerns and the context of peri-urban Victoria, coal's political ecology acts as a microcosm, an allegory and visual This dissertation is lovingly dedicated to my mother, Elisabet Veit and in memory of my late father Gottfried Veit, who fought with life for what he believed was just. This research project would not have been possible without the generousity and support of my family, friends and many individuals and organisations. I am particularily grateful to all individuals, communities and institutions in the Latrobe Valley, who welcomed me, participated in and contributed to this study. I specially want to thank the following for their generous support: Wendy Farmer and

The Environmental Assessment of a Contemporary Coal Mining System

1980

A contemporary underground coal mine in eastern Kentucky was assessed in order to determine potential off-site and on-site environmental impacts associated with the mining system in the given environmental setting. A 4-section, continuous room-and-pillar mine plan was developed for an appropriate site in eastern Kentucky. Potential environmental impacts were identified, and mitigation costs determined, using an environmental assessment methodology for coal extraction systems developed by Sullivan et al., 1980 (JPL Publication 79-82). The major potential environmental impacts were determined to be: (1) acid water drainage from the mine and refuse site, (2) uneven subsidence of the surface as a result of mining activity, and (3) alteration of groundwater aquifers in the subsidence zone. In the specific case examined, the costs of environmental impact mitigation to levels prescribed by regulations would not exceed $1/ton of coal mined, and post-mining land values would not be affected. 111 FOREWORD This document is one of a series which describe systems level requirements for advanced underground coal mining equipment. These requirements are summarized in "Overall Requirements for an Advanced Underground Coal Extraction System," JPL Publication 80-39, by Martin Goldsmith and Milton L. Lavin. Five areas of performance are discussed: (1) Production cost. (2) Miner safety. (3) Miner health. (4) Environmental impact. (5) Recovery efficiency. The report which follows illustrates the methodology used to assess compliance with the environmental impact requirements. Details of this methodology may be found in "A Methodology for the Environmental Assessment of Advanced Coal Extraction Systems", JPL Publication 79-82. This work is part of an effort to define and develop innovative coal extraction systems suitable for the significant resources remaining in the year 2000. Sponsorship is provided by the Office of Mining, United States Department of Energy via an interagency agreement with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.