Scientists from Duke and Baylor Universities said in the study released this week, there had been significant drops in the biodiversity of aquatic insects in the region and, at the same time, a jump in pollutants and sulfate salinity the group said came from mine runoff.

“Our findings offer concrete evidence of the cumulative impacts surface mining is having on a regional scale,” Duke Nicholas School of the Environment associate professor of biogeochemistry Emily Bernhardt said.

"The relationship is clear and direct. The more mining you have upstream, the higher the biological loss and salinity levels will be downstream, and the farther they will extend.”

The researcher said the ES& study was not the first to link water quality issues near surface operations.

In fact, it was the goal of her and her team to “understand how the large and growing number of surface mines is affecting water quality throughout Appalachia”

The schools used satellite images from the National Aeronautic and Space Administration as well as digital data to map a 12,000-square-mile area in southern West Virginia where mining occurred between 1976 and 2005.

The researchers, according to Science Daily, said that more than 5% of the land was converted to operations and, during the same timeframe, some 480 miles of streams were buried under neighboring valley fills.

Data from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s 223 chemical and biological samples from 1997 to 2007 were tied in with the group’s mapping to determine that the mines’ pollution runoff could “substantially degrade” more than 1,400 miles of stream.

“It's important to recognize that surface coal mining pollution doesn't stop at mine-permit boundaries,” Duke postdoctoral associate Brian Lutz said.

"Our analysis suggests that mining only five per cent of the land surface is degrading between 22 per cent and 32 per cent of the region's rivers.”

Duke and Baylor researchers also found there were significant drops in insect diversity even when just one per cent of upstream land was mined.

Also, in the areas where land had been converted to mines, some sensitive species disappeared, such as the mayfly and stonefly, or declined to the point where the state could classify the area “biologically impaired”

Bernhardt said the designation could lead to the streams being placed on a mandated rehabilitation list.

“What is so compelling is that we found many different types of organisms are lost downstream of surface coal mines, and most of them begin to disappear at similar levels of mining,” Baylor associate professor of biology Ryan King said.