A 10-year research project to restore a 40-acre abandoned mine refuse site nestled atop the mountains of Greenbrier County is in its final stages of development thanks to the work of civil engineers at West Virginia University , local and state government organizations and industry partners.
The ambitious project led by Associate Professors John Quaranta and Leslie Hopkinson in the Wadsworth Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, and Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute, a program of WVU’s Energy Institute, utilizes a reclamation technique called Geomorphic Landform Design to mitigate acid mine drainage originating from the waste pile.