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Considering the potential future uses of abandoned mine lands is an important part of EPA's commitment to finding innovative and effective approaches to reducing the potential threats that these contaminated lands pose to human health and the environment. EPA recognizes that land reuse often brings economic, environmental, and social benefits to communities, and also may serve as a catalyst for expediting environmental risk reduction. EPA's Abandoned Mine Lands Reuse and Revitalization web page includes links to reports, fact sheets and technical resources related to revitalization of mine lands.

• The Mine-Scarred Lands Initiative Tool Kit shares what was learned through the Federal Brownfields Partnership's Mine-Scarred Lands Initiative by working with six demonstration projects on hard rock and coal mining sites throughout the country. In addition to the experiences of the six projects, the toolkit includes links to other mine cleanup and reuse resources.
• Mine Site Cleanup for Brownfields Redevelopment: A Three-part Primer summarizes the basic issues surrounding mine site cleanup for brownfields redevelopment, including innovative characterization and remediation approaches. The Primer includes detailed technical information about the characterization, remediation, and redevelopment of hard rock and coal mine sites. It is intended for those with an interest in, and knowledge of the technical aspects of redeveloping coal mine sites.
• EPA developed a series of fact sheets that describe a variety of tools for reuse of former mining sites. While each of these tools may be applicable to only a small percentage of the former mine lands throughout the country, given the number of former mine lands, even a small percentage may represent thousands of actual sites. Individual fact sheets include:
• Wetland Banking at Former Mine Lands: An Ecological Solution with Economic Benefits
  This fact sheet describes the opportunities associated with reusing former mine lands to create wetland banks.
• Carbon Sequestration: A Local Solution with Global Implications (Appendices)
  This fact sheet is intended for mine land owners, companies, and other stakeholders interested in exploring the opportunities for using reforestation to clean up and restore former mine lands and generate carbon sequestration credits. It examines the requirements and limitations for pursuing mine land reforestation and sequestration projects and how reforestation projects can fit into emerging markets for carbon trading.
• Land Conservation and Former Mine Lands: Preserving Natural Land Resources, Planning for the Future
  This fact sheet is intended to educate communities, mine land owners, potentially responsible parties, companies, and other interested groups about how land conservation tools can be used as part of an integrated strategy to remediate and restore former mine lands. It describes available land conservation tools and their potential benefits and the opportunities and limitations associated with using different land conservation tools.
• Water Quality Credits at Former Mine Lands: Improving America's Water Resources, Reclaiming Lost Landscapes
  This fact sheet is intended to educate communities, mine land owners, potentially responsible parties, companies, and other interested groups about how water quality trading credits can be used as part of an integrated strategy to clean up and restore former mine lands. It also describes the opportunities and limitations associated with using water quality trading credits and provides resource and contact information.
• RE-Powering America's Lands- EPA is encouraging renewable energy development on current and formerly contaminated land and mine sites when it is aligned with the community's vision for the site. This initiative identifies the renewable energy potential of these sites and provides other useful resources for communities, developers, industry, state and local governments or anyone interested in reusing these sites for renewable energy development. The site includes a variety of resources, including mapping tools and data for assessing the renewable energy potential for sites.
• Soil Amendments- Revitalization of a mining site may involve the addition of amendments to the contaminated soil. Soil amendments are materials added to soils in order to revitalize and make them suitable for sustaining plant life or development. Mining sites with contaminated or disturbed soils exhibit a variety of problems that often can be addressed effectively and directly through the use of soil amendments. Project managers could evaluate their effects in the subsurface, their potential for eventual transport to surface waters, and their possible subsequent adverse effects on plant and animal communities.

Research References

• Gasified Grass and Wood Biochars Facilitate Plant Establishment in Acid Mine Soils
  Phillips, C., K. Trippe, G. Whittaker, S. Griffith, M. Johnson, and G. Banowetz.
  Journal of Environmental Quality 45:1013-1020(2016)
  Biochars derived from the pyrolysis or gasification of biomass potentially can serve as a valuable soil amendment to revegetate mine sites. Biochars produced by gasification of either Kentucky bluegrass seed screenings (KB) or mixed conifer wood (CW) were investigated for mine soil amendment to support the growth of wheat plants in heavy metal-laden mine soils from the abandoned Formosa and Almeda mines, Oregon. Both KB and CW biochar amendments promoted plant establishment by increasing soil pH, increasing concentrations of macro- and micronutrients, and decreasing the solubility of heavy metals. Amending these soils with between 2% to 4% biochar (by weight) was needed to promote healthy wheat growth and reduce metals mobility.
• Microbial Functional Capacity is Preserved Within Engineered Soil Formulations Used in Mine Site Restoration
  Kumaresan, D., A.T. Cross, B. Moreira-Grez, K. Kariman, P. Nevill, J. Stevens, R.J.N Allcock, et al.
  Scientific Reports 7:564(2017)
  Recycling of mining site substrates can be achieved by blending the waste materials with native soil to form a novel substrate that can be used in future landscape restoration; however, these post-mining substrate-based soils are likely to contain significant abiotic constraints for plant and microbial growth. Using both marker gene and shotgun metagenome sequencing, researchers showed that topsoil storage and the blending of soil and waste substrates to form planting substrates gave rise to variable bacterial and archaeal phylogenetic composition but a high degree of metabolic conservation at the community metagenome level. Their data indicated that whilst low phylogenetic conservation was apparent across substrate blends, high functional redundancy was observed in relation to key soil microbial pathways, allowing the potential for functional recovery of key belowground pathways under targeted management.