Today at the Coal Mac surface mine. At this mine i was amazed at the quality of the reclaimation and the short amount of time it took for the habitat to regrow. While the mountains looked a little different then the original contour, it did not really look bad. I also learned what valley fill really means and whole ot changes the original contour of the land it doesn't seem to make things worse. Additionally, it seems that the extra drainage supplied will help the run off.
We also visited the cleaning plant at Mt. Laurel. This facility was interesting because of how well they recovered the coal and how small a coal particle they recovered. Also this was interesting because my Dad work at a tipple and this plant looked a whole lot different. This facility was very modern and relatively clean.
At dinner we set with Kent and Cathy. Kent was the general manager for a coal operation. He told us the Mt. Laurel plant was two years old. It looked like it. He did express some frustation with the permit process. He has worked in mines in several states.
Overall this was a very good day. I was able to learn more about surface mining. While the land will look worse at the beginning of the mining process, it looks better or as good as orginally. I would like to see some additional industries brought in to build economic diversity. Like wine groves or apple orchard on the mine sites.
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