Peabody Energy Ereen Mine Restoration

Mongolia has some of the richest untapped coal reserves in the world. Bordered on one side by China and the other by Russia, it is ideally situated to serve China and other Asian markets, which are expected to generate approximately 90% of coal's demand growth in the next 20 years. Coal is a key element of Mongolia's long-term economic development strategy.

Peabody Energy acquired the Ereen Mine, located on Mongolia's remote northern steppes, through a joint venture in 2009. Shortly thereafter, the mine was closed for economic and logistical reasons, creating an important opportunity to establish best practices for land restoration, in what would be a first-of-its-kind project for Mongolia. The company assembled an international team of more than 60 experts and workers, including its own environmental scientists and engineers, Mongolian engineers and support staff, the Mongolian Agricultural University and the Mongolian Forage Seed Producers Association (MFSPA).

The team was led by Peabody Energy's Senior Manager for International Reclamation, Vern Pfannenstiel, whose three-decade career had previously included work across the western United States and on Black Mesa in north eastern Arizona. Restoration projects on Black Mesa required Pfannenstiel to balance energy resource development with the needs of the local Native American community - an experience that would prove invaluable in Mongolia.

Challenging Conditions

It is a nine-hour drive from the capital, Ulaanbaatar, to the remote Ereen site along many unpaved roads, which provided challenging logistical and resourcing issues. The workforce weathered the highly variable climate conditions at the project camp in traditional, circular felt tents, known as gers.

Specialised seeding equipment needed for the project was nowhere to be found in Mongolia, so the Peabody Energy team had a John Deere box type seeder shipped from the western US to the project site - a five month odyssey. It was the first machine of its kind ever used in Mongolia, and once it was no longer required, the team donated it to the MFSPA. The machine will allow the MFSPA to complete a number of other important restoration projects. Dr D Tumenjargal of the MFSPA - an expert in small restoration research projects, known to the team as "Dr Tumee" - called it a "dream come true". Specialised skills were equally lacking, so the team trained a skilled workforce from scratch, recruiting people with construction backgrounds and teaching them reclamation, safety and equipment best practice behaviour.

The Mongolian workforce rose effectively to the difficulties of the remote site conditions, and met the maintenance and operational challenges with ingenuity and enthusiasm. Despite the challenging working conditions, the project achieved more than 60,000 work hours over 12 months without a lost-time incident.

Think Globally, Act Locally

The $1 million project transformed the former mine site into 44 acres of lush steppe grassland. It has created productive pastureland for traditional livestock grazing and provided a source of fresh drinking water in an area that did not previously have easy access to potable water.

Peabody Energy carried out the restoration with the nomadic community's longstanding cultural practices and land uses in mind. The new community well separates drinking water from livestock water, protecting the purity of water intended for human consumption. The design took into account the harsh conditions typical in Mongolia. The restored landscape also incorporates a surface pond where local herders can bring their cattle, goats, horses and sheep to drink.

Fencing protects the reclamation area from free-roaming livestock during the establishment phase of the project. Recent monitoring indicates that, with forage production running at four times that of native lands, the site has strong potential as a hay production resource, critical for feeding local livestock during the harsh winter. All the project's camp supplies, construction materials and parts were purchased locally or through established manufacturers with branch offices in Mongolia. As well as transferring technical knowledge to the local workforce, Peabody Energy donated materials, supplies and housing from the project back to the local governments and herders, and employed local families as caretakers. Two local families, one of which has grazed its herds at Ereen for generations, accepted responsibility for ongoing site maintenance and management. Another family took custodianship of the well, and keeps the upstream watershed free from potential contaminants.