Over the past three decades, coal companies have mined and reclaimed approximately 1.5 million acres of land throughout Appalachia, according to estimates from a Virginia Tech researcher. In many cases, the land has been reclaimed as grassy pastures, rather than the forests that once stood on the mountains.
Now, one organization is trying to change that. The Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative—or ARRI, for short—is a coalition including government officials, environmentalists, coal operators and scientists. They’re asking the federal government for more than $422 million in stimulus money to plant trees on abandoned mine sites.
Jeffrey Skousen is a professor of plants and soil at WVU and a member of ARRI’s science team. He says the current system gives coal companies incentives to reclaim sites as pastureland, rather than forests.
“Since many of these lands were reclaimed, the laws were made so they wanted to compact it and make sure the soil was stable and to get a nice green uniform vegetation cover on it,” Skousen said.
“So tree planting was often seen as taking a little bit longer for vegetation to establish and for mine owners to get their bond back.”
If ARRI gets the stimulus money, the funds would be used to plant 125 million trees throughout Central Appalachia. The project’s supporters say it could help repair some of the ecological damage surface mining has wrought on the region during the past thirty years.
Kathryn Piatek is a professor of forestry at WVU and also a member of ARRI’s science team.
“So basically ARRI is proposing to coal mine operators and landowners that are interested in reforesting their reclaimed mine lands, this five step approach to basically ensure that the trees are growing,” she said.
The first step for good tree growth, Piatek says, is to make sure there is a suitable rooting medium—at least 4 feet of topsoil or weathered sandstone.
But it’s this first step that worries Joe Lovett of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and Environment. Lovett says he agrees that trees should be planted on the grassy pastures left by surface mining. But he calls the ARRI’s program “wishful thinking.”
“Those lands should be reclaimed; there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “I think that it’s very difficult to reclaim those lands at this point, because the mining companies were very irresponsible in the way they mined them in the past.
“For instance, the top soil wasn’t saved, the upper portions of the strata weren’t saved. So instead of having the nice soils we have in our Appalachian forests, what you’re left with are these alkaline shales, for the most part on the surface of these mines that will not grow the trees.”
Skousen says there are areas where the soil isn’t optimal for tree growth right now. But he says either they will plant trees that flourish in alkaline soil, or wait for the soil to become suitable.
“Some of the sites, the pH is quite high and is more suited for grasses, but we know a lot of trees that will grow on moderate to high pH soils,” he said. “And of course we also know that with time these soils will gradually become more acidic and lose some of their alkalinity through leaching, which is a natural process.”
Piatek agrees, and says each mining site needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis.
“I’m not convinced that all of Southern West Virginia is like that because I’ve seen reforested sites, and I’ve seen plenty of tree growth down there, so I would have to know specifics,” she said.
Still, Lovett thinks more research is needed before the government invests money in a project that could fail.
“It would be a very worthwhile project to get together some experts on this issue and talk about how to supplement those soils in ways that would grow trees,” he said.
“I don’t think we have the science yet to do it, and I think it would be very expensive and not the kind of thing that the legislature and the governor have funded up to this point, but something that needs a significant amount of funding and research to have happen.”
If forests eventually flourish on abandoned mine lands, both ARRI and Lovett agree, it presents a realistic opportunity for economic development in the state.
ARRI scientists have given a copy of their proposal to the White House.