Potential benefits from and barriers against coal remining
Coal has been mined commercially in the United States since the mid 1700s and strip mining of coal began in the in the late 1800S. However, until the past 15--20 years, the environmental effects of coal mining caused little concern. In the past, coal mining sites were abandoned for economic reasons or because the equipment in use at the time could not recover any additional coal. Many of these sites were left in an unsafe and unsightly condition, resulting in severe water quality problems and threats to public health and safety. In more recent times, the advent of more sophisticated equipment allowed operators to return to previously mined sites and recover additional coal. This practice, known as remining, is the subject of this paper. In the most general sense, remining is simply mining again at a site that had formerly been mined. Many of today`s coal mining activities take place entirely or partially at sites that were formerly mined and left unreclaimed, primarily because no laws existed requiring reclamation. This paper focuses on the subset of remining projects, which not only recover additional coal, but also reclaim or improve the condition of abandoned mine lands (AMLs), particularly improvements to water quality.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., Washington, DC (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 10161216
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/EAIS/CP-78609; CONF-930794-1; ON: DE93015553
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 25. Mid-Atlantic industrial waste conference,College Park, MD (United States),7-9 Jul 1993; Other Information: PBD: [1993]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Restoration of a watershed through remining and funded projects
H. R. 4804: A bill to amend titles I, II, IV and V of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, and to add a new title X, to encourage the remining and reclamation of abandoned mined lands by active mining operations, and for other purposes. Introduced in the House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, Second Session, June 14, 1988