Water quality changes and costs of remining in Pennsylvania and West Virginia

Conference · Wed Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:613817

Skousen, J ^[1]; Hedin, R ^[2]; Faulkner, B ^[3]

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1. West Virginia Univ., Morgantown, WV (United States)
2. Hedin Environmental, Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
3. Bratton Farms, Princeton, WV (United States)

Remining is the surface mining of previously-mined and abandoned surface and underground mines to obtain remaining coal reserves. Remining operations create jobs in the coal industry, produce coal from previously-disturbed areas, and improve aesthetics by backfilling and revegetating areas according to current reclamation standards. Remining operations also reduce safety and environmental hazards by sealing existing portals and removing abandoned facilities, enhance land use quality, and decrease pre-existing pollutional discharges. Ten sites in the Appalachian Coal Region were selected to: (1) compare the costs associated with remining and reclaiming a site to current standards vs costs associated with reclaiming the site by abandoned mine land (AML) programs, and (2) evaluate water quality before and after remining. All of the remining operations in our study resulted in environmental benefits. Dangerous highwalls were eliminated, spoil piles were regraded, coal refuse left on the surface was buried, and sites were revegetated with a mixture of grasses and legumes to provide productive post-remining land uses. In all but two cases, coal mined and sold from the remining operation produced a net profit for the mining company. While AML reclamation removes hazards and improves aesthetics on AML sites, remining these 10 sites saved the AML reclamation fund an estimated $4 million. Water quality after remining improved in all cases. Impediments to remining AML sites should be removed so that mining companies will actively select previously-disturbed and abandoned sites for remining and reclamation.

• OSTI ID: 613817
• Report Number(s): CONF-9705128--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
COAL DEPOSITS
COAL MINES
COST
ECONOMICS
PENNSYLVANIA
RESOURCE ASSESSMENT
SURFACE MINING
WATER QUALITY
WEST VIRGINIA