Editor s Note
This is the second article in a two-part series on the dramatic and lasting impact of unregulated coal mining that once took place in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Restoration efforts began 40 years ago and have a long way to go. But funding to restore abandoned mine land is largely tied to fees paid by existing coal mining operations. In an odd twist, we need coal in order to clean up coal. As the nation moves away from coal-generated energy, what will fund the work that lies ahead?
Part 1, Orange water, dirty air, looked at how we got here. Part 2 explores restoration strategies, success stories and what it will take to get the job done.
Will New Mexico learn from coal s decline? — High Country News – Know the West hcn.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hcn.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Satellite images of the land outside Artesia, New Mexico, show an arid brown landscape pockmarked with dots. Zoom in a bit, and a semiregular grid pattern appears, which could be mistaken for a suburban development. Zoom once more and the truth becomes clear: oil drilling sites, thousands of them. Each of these wells will one day need to be cleaned up: the borehole plugged and the land restored. When abandoned, wells like these will leak methane and other pollutants into the atmosphere for years.
More than 1,500 miles east and north of Artesia, among rolling hills of Appalachia, there are streams tinged orange by acid mine drainage and mountaintops flattened by companies seeking the hard, black coal seams underneath. Many of these companies are now bankrupt, or shadows of their former selves, while the industry’s legacy persists in billions of dollars in cleanup costs.