Soil Science Practice in Hard Rock Mine Reclamation.

Reclamation planning is a critical component for any mining company.  Reclamation practice is driven by state and federal permitting requirements to restore disturbed lands to a sustainable post-mining land use, protect water quality, and mitigate heavy metal contamination.  Soil science has a critical role to play in reclamation success especially during the cover design processes to meet the reclamation objectives. Consulting certified professional soil scientists can provide water balance modelling and vadose zone monitoring to design and evaluate exavpotranspirative soil covers. In addition, soil scientists can also develop revegetation plans and monitoring programs for eventual financial assurance release.  This presentation will discuss the successes and challenges of working on large scale reclamation projects in the arid southwest.  The discussion will focus on two main topics: (1) collaborating with design engineers to develop a comprehensive construction and cover design plan and (2) describing soil behavior to meet both engineering and reclamation objectives.