By SUSAN HAYHURST
Indiana Correspondent

FARMERSBURG, Ind. — The U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining (OSM) Director Joseph Pizarchik presented an Indiana Department of Natural Resources-led (DNR) team with a federal Partners in Conservation Award last week.

This was in recognition of a long-term collaborative effort to ensure protection, restoration and management of soil resources affected by coal mining in Indiana. The ceremony was at the Peabody Energy Mine near Farmersburg, with accompanying soil and site tours in the surrounding area.

The Indiana Soils/Prime Farmland Team was created nearly 14 years ago and spearheaded the joint effort. Industry officials, farmers, regulatory personnel and university researchers comprise the team.

The group includes the Indiana Farm Bureau, University of Illinois, Indiana Department of Agriculture, OSM, Purdue University extension, the Purdue Agronomy Department, Sierra Club, DNR, USDA, Peabody Energy, Solar Sources, Inc., Soil Tech, Inc., Vigo Coal Co., Black Beauty Coal Co. and Hoosier farmers Drew Brand of Farmersburg and Matt Hockman of Switz City.

“Our mission is to restore land to pre-mining capabilities,” said Pizarchik. “There was great cooperation with this team. We don’t recognize teams like this often enough and they set a great example of a team that planned, researched and worked together.
“OSM’s objective is to reclaim prime farmland. This team did that, and more. They published two booklets about the process, helped with research on the subject, conducted six land field days during the multi-year effort and reclaimed the ground.”

Pizarchik compared the team’s successful effort to a jury: “Much like a jury, collective intelligence comes out with a better decision than just one person decoding the case. The development of the solution in reclaiming ground worked for the best of everyone involved.”

Nearly 1,000 acres of the reclaimed land near Farmersburg is farmed by Brand, who works a total of 2,400 acres. He was approached by the team approximately four years ago to become involved in their effort. Brand believes he was asked because he had attended their first field days several years before and wanted to learn about the subject.

“Besides attending field days, I talked with those knowledgeable about farming reclaimed ground and read the first booklet the team produced about land reclamation,” he said.

“About the time the team had rewritten and revised the book, Citizen Guide to Land Reclamation, they brought Matt Hockman and me in because of our interest and experience.

“The rewritten booklet explains the changed methods of reclamation and how the program was essentially starting over with fresh data and resources. The booklet has great resources, websites, agency listings and definitions. It’s especially good for farmers like me or for the landowners so they understand what they have to work with.”

Brand considers the reclaimed ground an important part of his operation. “Being a part of the team, being cited with them for the award and farming for Solar Sources has been an opportunity not a lot of other farmers get,” he said. “Ground does not come open very often, especially with this acreage, so I appreciate seeing firsthand how the different things work together for prime farmland like the field drainage, the yields, the reclamation process.”

According to the booklet, “prime farmlands are those lands, as determined by the NRCS, as having the best combination of physical and chemical characteristics for producing food, feed and forage.

Additionally for the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act purposes, these soils must have been historically used for cropland production to be considered as prime farmland.

“State and federal law requires a minimum of 48 inches of soil (topsoil and subsoil) be removed, stored and replaced on all prime farmland areas. The operator must restore prime farmland to 100 percent of its pre-mining level of productivity as determined by the NRCS for any three years of the responsibility period.”

Brand says his reclaimed land yields have been variable because of weather patterns. “The phenomenon of when the rains come and how they affect this land and its crops are really interesting to watch. The potential is there, we’re just weather-dependent. I’ve also done some test plots on the ground and watched especially where a whole farm field now sits where coal had been under it. I like learning the results,” he added.

Farming reclaimed ground is a “unique situation,” said Brand. “I’m a steward of the coal mine and their ground. The key to farming such ground is to learn how to do it by attending field days, talking with farmers who have experience with such ground, understand soil replacement and get the guide we’ve published.

“The mines are trying to do things right, the researchers look at yield data and they talk with we who farm it. It’s amazing the expertise this team has. I’m grateful to be a part of it.”