By Jackie Whetzel

November 11, 2019 - West Virginia’s land is some of the most diverse in the world. It is abundant in coal, and surface mines are plentiful across scenic mountains.

Experts, however, say land in places like the Monongahela National Forest in eastern West Virginia is now considered “unproductive” because of coal mining activities.

Hovering 4,800 feet above the Cheat Mountain in this area, there once was an active coal mine. The land here was left untouched for decades, yielding patchy trees and grass.

This, too, is a place where environmental groups have been ripping up the landscape for about a decade.

They’re not mining for coal, though.

They’re trying to rebuild the forests that once were native to West Virginia.

The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 required coal companies to “green” mining sites when they were finished with their work to comply with federal regulations.

The reclamation act created two programs – one for regulating active coal mines and the other for reclaiming abandoned mines.

Coal companies seemed to comply. Experts realized, however, that what they thought was appropriate reclamation work many years ago – could have been done better.

“At the time, that was state-of-the-art reclamation,” said Scott Eggerud, forester for the Federal Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation.

Eggerud is a federal expert when it comes to West Virginia’s mine reclamation sites.

He wrote West Virginia’s mine land restoration rules in 2004 – which were approved by the federal government in 2005 – and has helped guide mine reclamation activities for more than 20 years.

Eggerud acknowledges that the work being done in areas like the Monongahela National Forest today is necessary, but also points out that just because there’s a “better way to do it,” it was still “outstanding reclamation at the time.”

“We’ve since learned we can do better,” Eggerud said.

When the mines were finished with the land in the Monongahela National Forest, heavy equipment machinery was brought in to pack the soil back into place. In the process, a variety of trees – mostly the “desperation” species – were planted.

The wrong trees were planted, and the soil was so compact that roots had a difficult time expanding, allowing rainwater to seep down, according to Michael French, director of operations for the nonprofit organization Green Forests Work.

What the coal mines left was “a grassy parking lot, essentially,” French said, describing the formerly mined areas of the Monongahela National Forest.

A bunch of compact, crushed rock material was blown up to expose the coal seams and left no good voids for pre-roots to extend down into.

But it’s not necessarily the coal mines’ fault. Coal companies had to compact the ground for slope stability as required by the law, French said.

“That’s what they had to do to restore the mountains,” he said.

Their efforts were acceptable at the time. But Green Forests Work says what they’re doing now is better.

Mower 19, a 40,000-acre piece of land on Cheat Mountain in Randolph and Pocahontas counties, is just one piece of land where this work is being done in Appalachia.

Coal was previously mined on about 2,000 acres here in the 1970s.

According to the Monongahela National Forest, the soil was packed so tight on the reclaimed land that “arrested succession” occurred. The land was stripped of its nutrients and healthy, native forests were prevented from taking root.

Until now.

Green Forests Work, a nonprofit, is working collaboratively with a team of experts to restore the Monongahela National Forest in a second-round reclamation endeavor.

In 2014, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and Forest Service came aboard creating a partnership to restore landscapes, reduce wildfire threats, protect water quality and enhance wildlife habitats in West Virginia.

In 2017, they formed the Appalachian Ecosystem Restoration Initiative to further advance the mission.

These evolving reclamation efforts are being done across Appalachia, from Pennsylvania to Alabama.

“We’re restoring red spruce on areas that were formerly surface mined,” French explained. “That ecosystem Red Spruce Forest harbored a lot of threatened species.”

French describes what they do as tilling a garden – but on an extremely large scale.

“A lot of the areas where we’re re-planting, we have to go in with large bulldozers and rip up that compaction,” French said. “A lot of times we’ll get rid of vegetation completely with large ripping shanks that pull up all of the gravel.”

The goal is to increase the growth rate of trees and accelerate carbon at a faster rate, according to French.

French’s organization has planted nearly 2.8 million trees across 4,500 acres in the Monongahela National Forest since 2009.

They say about a million acres are still left to reforest there.

While the aftermath of mining clearly took a toll in this area, Green Forests Work says it should be noted that it wasn’t just coal mines that caused problems here.

Logging for timber products in the 1800s and 1900s and sparks from railroads burning the soil also cleared a lot of the red spruce out.

“It sterilized the soil and killed the seed banks so red spruce couldn’t return,” French added.

Prior to the logging era, red spruce dominated more than 500,000 acres in West Virginia.

Today, less than 10 percent remains in the state, according to forest ecologist Amy Coleman.

Red spruce forests are said to provide an all-season canopy that serves as a natural habitat for both rare plant and animal species.

The Federal Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation says 80 percent of today’s mining permits plan for turning the land back into forest land.

“This should be an ongoing effort in the state,” Eggerud said.

While past reclamation efforts included planting lots of “desperation” species of various pine trees, Eggerud says today the standard is set to plant more native species and avoid compaction so the work doesn’t have to be redone.

“The coal industry is doing a very good job of reforesting the active mine sites,” Eggerud said. “Throughout West Virginia, mine land reforestation has been the most mine land of choice.”

Green Forests Work has already spent nine years and upward of about $5 million restoring the land in the Monongahela National Forest.

French says Green Forests Work may be in southern West Virginia in the future.

In 2020, it will work on a project in Kentucky and the tri-state border of Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia and will continue its work in eastern West Virginia.

The Monongahela National Forest Project has involved multiple funding sources and partners including Green Forests Work, the U.S. Forest Service, Komatsu America Corp., the Appalachian Stewardship Foundation, Mennen Environmental Foundation, Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative, the National Forest Foundation and American Forests, among others.