Will Scarlet Mine

The Will Scarlet Mine is a former open-cast coal mine near Carrier Mills, Illinois , USA. At times it was considered the worst acid-contaminated open-cast mine in the entire USA, after an extensive renaturation project in the 1980s, it is now a well-known showpiece for successful renaturation , which houses a large breeding population of Canada geese and as winter quarters for thousands of geese, ducks and other water birds serves.

In 1967, the Peabody Coal Company began treating the draining 3.5 million gallons of acidic water that was pumped out daily. In the early 1980s, the company came to the conclusion that this would be a permanent problem unless it was possible to restore the site itself to a stable condition. Together with the Southern Illinois University Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, the company poured just under 100,000 tons of lime, sewage sludge and rock into the open pit mine to neutralize the acid and geologically stabilize the site, and spread about 4,000–5,000 kilos of seeds around the vegetation to stabilize.

The mine is named after Will Scarlet , a character from the legendary world of Robin Hood .

literature

• Annual Report of the US Department of the Interior Office of Surface Mining Fiscal Year 1991 . P. 2 ( PDF ).