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Truck and Shovel Coal Mine Reclamation

Mine highwall and pit to functional landform

Restore Highwall

A GeoFluv landform was designed to replace this highwall. The design minimized backfill and saved moving several hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of earth material while optimizing slope habitat for trees and making a “Special Wildlife Enhancement Feature.

Lasting Effect

The GeoFluv landform that replaced the highwall shown above is shown seven months after completion. GPS machine guidance aided the construction of this project. The shadows accent the various slope aspects that support vegetation diversity (the most shaded areas were identified for tree planting). During July 2006, this landform received an approximately 200-yr, 3-hr precipitation event and suffered no observable erosion and needed no erosion repair or maintenance.

Wildlife Feature

The “Special Wildlife Enhancement Feature” included beautiful sandstone cliffs for swallow nesting, to the right of the tree planting area. The project drains to a wildlife pond that provides abundant insects to feed the swallows that nest in the cliffs. Elk, mule deer, coyote, jackrabbit, and Western cottontail are also heavy users of the area.

The images above show a portion of a 38-acre (15.4 hectare) GeoFluv project; the entire site involved 2,066 acres (836 hectare).