Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's The Excerpt, ad free right now.

Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app.

Hello and

this is Wednesday, January 10th, 2024, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt. observed.

There are thousands of abandoned coal mines all over the United States,

many of which continue to be sources of toxic waste that threaten local

communities and aggravate climate change. But can there be a positive second act

for these relics of the industrial age.

For decades, scientists have been studying how some abandoned coal mines have actually become

a haven for biodiversity for both plants and wildlife. Can nature help us in revitalizing our damaged

environment? We're talking to Wally Smith, a biologist at the University of

Virginia about how alive these areas are becoming and what we can do to

support them. Thanks for being here Wally. Thanks so much for having me. So how many

abandoned mines are there in the region that you study and how many are there

across the country?

Yeah, it's actually very difficult to get an exact figure of how many former surface mines are there

simply because a mining has happened

over such a long time period and there's been so many different types of mines

that have happened historically.

But some of the best estimates that are out there in Appalachia at least, which is where I work in the eastern U.S.

Is that an area that's nearly the size of Delaware has been surfaced mined at least one point in time historically.

Closer I work, I mean the Virginia coalfields of the southwestern quarter of Virginia,

...