Repairing the Damage: Cleaning up the Land, Air, and Water Damaged by the Coal Industry Before 1977

For more than 200 years, the coal industry extracted billions of tons of coal in the US, damaging thousands of acres of land and water and leaving much of it un-reclaimed. Damage includes clogged streams, water pollution, mine fires, landslides, gases leaking from mines, deforested land, and more. In this report, I demonstrate why it is critical to address the damaged sites that remain, many of which threaten the injury and death of residents, deter development, harm local ecosystems, and contribute to climate change by emitting greenhouse gases. I also estimate the cost of cleaning up the remaining damage and project future reclamation program revenues. I estimate the number of jobs required to repair this damage and investigate the pay of common reclamation occupations. I close the report with a series of policy recommendations. This report was originally published in April 2021 and builds on an earlier report written by this author and Kendall Bilbrey: Dixon and Bilbrey, Abandoned mine land program: a policy analysis for central Appalachia and the nation. Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, 2015 [24]. See Chap. 2 of Dixon and Bilbrey for a history of the federal mine reclamation program.