User:21killma/Coal mining in Kentucky
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Environmental Impacts
[edit]Rejuvenation Efforts
[edit]Eastern Kentucky native, Dr. Patrick Angel initially spent most of his career within the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement instructing mining companies on how to fix land that was negatively affected by strip-mining and mountaintop removal mining[1]. These efforts consisted of packing soil tightly together and planting grass, a plant which Angel says was the "only type of plant he trusted to hold the ground in place"[1]. In 2002, scientists like Dr. Angel started realizing that Appalachian forests destroyed by strip-mining weren't coming back, even with rejuvenation efforts[1]. In Appalachia, a land mass larger than the state of Delaware should have been covered in trees, yet only held grass[1]. After realizing this was an ecological disaster, Dr. Angel led efforts to plant more than 187 million trees which cover more than 275,000 acres of former mining land in Appalachia[1]. Dr. Kathy Newfont, an Appalachian history professor at the University of Kentucky commented on Dr. Angel's efforts saying "...it was one of the most hopeful things I'd heard about the region in decades,"[1].