Peabody Energy's Viking mine receives reclamation award

The honours recognise efforts to restore prime farmland and wildlife habitat, improve stream water quality and enhance riparian and aquatic habitat. The work included reclaiming former refuse areas that were left in the mine lease area by a previous owner, which improved stream water quality.

The highest honour presented by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources' Division of Reclamation was given at the annual Indiana Society of Mining and Reclamation, Technology Transfer Seminar in Evansville.

"Peabody is honoured to receive this award. We take pride in sustaining the land's natural resources and know the value restoration has for our communities and generations to come," said Peabody Energy President – Americas Kemal Williamson.

Williamson said that Peabody has been reclaiming lands for decades and led the industry's first land restoration initiatives in the 1950s, nearly a quarter century before the law required it.

To date, the company has reclaimed more than 95% of the mined acreage at Viking mine – Knox Pit, which is advancing through final reclamation. Viking is the third Peabody Indiana mine in eight years to be recognised by the state's Society of Mining Reclamation.

Over the past decade, Peabody has spent approximately US$185 million to restore 48 000 acres. In 2015, the company restored more than 4700 acres of mined lands into rangeland, wildlife habitat, hardwood forests, prime farmland and wetlands.

In addition to paying for all of its own coal mine restoration, Peabody has paid nearly US$560 million in the past decade to the Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) program, and contributed more than US$45 million in 2015.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/mining/26122016/peabody-energys-viking-mine-receives-reclamation-award/