What do you anticipate the consequences are to the plants when the earth is plowed up or strip mined?

Answer 1

All surface or strip mining removes the overlying vegetation, soil and underground rock layers to extract coal from an underground coal deposit. The overlying vegetation (trees, bushes etc) get removed followed by topsoil. This alters the soil composition and natural layers, and destroys beneficial microorganisms living in the topsoil.

Strip mining may also degrade the productive capacity of adjacent land by introducing toxic materials to the soil, thus making the soil incompatible for future farming and agricultural endeavors.