It was a major victory in June when the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources voted to pass the RECLAIM Act with language that emphasized strong community input. As RECLAIM is written today, it will provide $1 billion to communities historically dependent on coal to help spur long-term economic development projects. These projects will be guided by the very communities who have a strong interest in seeing nearby abandoned minelands cleaned up and new economic opportunities created in the process.
You may be asking, “but what do these economic opportunities look like?”
Good question. There are many examples across the country of abandoned mine sites being leveraged to create jobs in agriculture, recreational tourism, retail, and clean energy production.
Agriculture
In Dickenson County, VA, Tammy Owens operates a 110 acre farm on land that was stripmined in the 1970s and 1980s. She uses organic farming practices to grow medicinal plants like goldenseal and cohosh. These organic practices also help to heal the soil and make it fertile again. Meanwhile, in Mingo County, West Virginia, a High Priority abandoned mine site will be reclaimed giving way to the construction of a aquaponics facility on site that will
sustainability produce fish and vegetables. This project is funded by the AML Pilot Program and will create up to 12 full-time, permanent jobs.
Business Centers
Abandoned surface and underground mines had left a scarred landscape in Luzerne County, PA. After reclamation efforts, however, a business park was constructed on the land. The commerce and trade park employs over 4,500 people and is home to 39 companies, including Lowe’s, FedEx Ground, and Men’s Warehouse. While more industrial parks are not the economic solution for many rural communities, this case study demonstrates that mine sites could be reclaimed for “brick and mortar” project applications like local businesses, job training facilities, and business incubators.
Recreational Tourism
In western Maryland, water purifiers were installed on the North Branch Potomac River, where an abandoned coal mine had been leaking pollution into the river for decades. Water quality soon improved, and today at least 13 commercial angling and whitewater boating outfitters operate on the river. This new tourism supports more than 40 full time jobs and has an economic impact of nearly $3 million on the area.
Clean Energy
In Glenrock, WY, a massive surface coal mine was converted into a 158-turbine wind farm. This farm produces 237 Megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power 66,800 households.
Projects like these are just the beginning. An Eastern Kentucky coal mining company announced this year that it plans to build what could become the state's largest solar farm on a reclaimed mountaintop strip mine, promising jobs for displaced coal miners. The Berkeley Energy Group and EDF Renewable Energy are planning the first large-scale solar project in Appalachia - focusing on two mountaintop-removal coal mining sites outside Pikeville, where engineering and feasibility studies are underway for a 50- to 100-megawatt project.
The lessons from these stories are clear: investments in cleaning up abandoned mine lands can be used to successfully revitalize areas and create jobs. Abandoned mine lands can be transformed into engines of economic opportunity, creating stronger communities, and ecosystems at the same time. This is why Sierra Club and our national and local allies have been pushing Congress to pass the RECLAIM Act - which does just that -as soon as possible. With $1 billion geared toward projects like these, hundreds of communities historically dependent on the coal industry can get a breath of new life.
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Bill Price, Senior Appalachia Organizing Representative for Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign