Work In Progress
Many of these chapters are still taking shape. This page, in particular, is a temporary home—a place for images to rest and gather before finding a chapter of their own.
Thank you for stopping by, and for returning to see how the work continues to evolve.
There used to be a coal train a day back in the seventies and eighties, now its down to one a day.
We grow potatoes, beans, squash, corn, green pees, radishes, carrots, garlic and plenty of onions. We usually have too much and have to give a bunch away each year.
.jpg)
Deborah Beverley (67) and O.J.Bays (66), in their backyard garden, Bull Run, Virginia, May 9th, 2021
Every year, Brian Hubbard, a former welder who lost his job when the local coal mine went bankrupt, watches the tiny, bay leaf-like foliage of his blueberry plants drop as the weather cools. This spring, thousands of bright white flowers will blanket his “little piece of paradise” – a ribbon of strip mined land in southwest Virginia that’s been in his family for generations. Here, Hubbard originally planned to grow an apple orchard before soil tests showed his pH levels were too low. But he turned the setback into an opportunity: blueberries love it. Hubbard spent a year and a half preparing the land – plowing and discing until he could eventually till his acreage, then planted raised beds and laid down 200 tons of wood chips. Hubbard calls it “an investment in the future” – he estimates it’ll be seven or eight years before he makes his money back, but he’s started growing a local customer base by selling at the farmers market.
This land has been in the family for generations. They started mining here in the 70s and ended at the 90s. It took me a year and a half to prepare this land, I had to plow and disc and plow and disk and eventually I could till it. Then I made raised beds and put 200 tonnes of wood chips down. This is my my little piece of paradise right here, just me and my blueberries. I used to work on the coal mines as a welder for 11 years. When they went bankrupt, I was already thinking of doing something else. So when I got laid off, one coal job would open up and hundreds would apply. I thought, I got this property, I thought I'd try an apple orchard. We had the soil tested, but the ph was too low. but it was perfect for blue berries. We do the blueberries on the old mine land and maple syrup and sorghum (molasses) on natural land. I sell them at the local farmers market. My sons 23, just graduated college, he was undecided what he wanted to do so he went and did agriculture and natural resources. There was no point in him coal mining, it's a dying industry. He wants to work in forestry and agriculture and he will have this farm to fall back on if he wants it. I think agriculture will be the future in this area, there's now big high ways or airports, Amazon ain't coming here, GM ain't moving their plants here, so it's agriculture.
.jpg)
Wilma Steele, Mine Wars Museum, Matewan, West Virginia, August 2024.
In Martin County, Kentucky, on the site of a bankrupt coal mine, Apple-Atcha planted 120,000 apple trees on 60 acres with hopes to expand to 1,000 acres.
.jpg)
"I run a shuttle car in the coal mines underground, I've worked there for fifteen years. The coal is really fading out quick around here. It's always been real strong over where I work in Logan County. I know [the price of] coal is up right now. But we've been close to being shutting down several times. We've really had no other jobs around here apart from coal. Its one thing to do away with coal, and I'm fine with that, it's real hard work, but they need to put something else in here. Nobody wants to pack up and move off. I'd come out of the mines tomorrow if I could do something else around here. I would. - Joshua
.jpg)
(L) Grandfather, Ronald Spaulding (61), Joshua Levi Newsom (8), , Preston Spaulding (9) and the boys father, Joshua Eric Newsom (35), Kermit, West Virginia, October, 2021.
Blue Acre is part of a broader land-use master plan led by Leasha Johnson, executive director of the Mingo County Redevelopment Authority. For nearly two decades, Johnson has worked with coal companies to repurpose former mine sites across West Virginia into projects aimed at economic renewal—among them a drag strip, golf course, local airport, industrial park, a 90-acre consolidated school site, and 15 miles of King Coal Highway. Unlike some of those developments, Johnson says Blue Acre was never meant to be self-sustaining. She anticipates an annual shortfall of up to $200,000, to be covered through philanthropy and federal support. The gap is intentional. Blue Acre prioritizes access to healthy food over profit, selling nearly all of its greens—butterhead lettuce, Salanova spring mix, Swiss chard, and kale—to two local school districts and a regional food bank, keeping fresh produce in a county where it has long been scarce.
In Kermit (population 3,000), Ty Sturgill—an ex–coal miner who spent 12 years underground—now co-manages Blue Acre, a solar-powered aquaponics greenhouse raising fresh vegetables and tilapia. The white, vinyl-sided building faces the muddy Tug Fork, which marks the border between southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. It sits atop the site of a former underground coal mine where, in 1951, an explosion killed 11 miners. Less than a mile from the center of town, the past remains close to the surface. Sturgill, unlike many of his high school friends and his older brother, never wanted to be a coal miner. “I hated it from day one,” he says. “I thought if just one of us could get out and do something different, and make a go of it, they could see that and they could leave as well. But they’re kind of trapped there. There ain’t a lot of other jobs out here.” In this part of Mingo County, the choice is often between post-secondary school or the mines. Many, like Sturgill once did, choose to stay close to family and friends. The transition to agriculture has meant nearly a $50,000 pay cut, but Sturgill says he feels better—spending more time outside and more time with his family. His younger brother, Brock Chapman, 19, is following his lead. Chapman now drives Blue Acre’s delivery truck instead of heading underground. “I don’t want to follow my brothers into coal,” he says. “There ain’t nothing in it.”
.jpg)
For Suzanne and David Lawson, a mother and son duo who run Mountain Rose Vineyards in Wise County, Virginia, reclaiming the soil has been their biggest investment – growing cover crops, storing carbon, and building organic matter – over the last two and a half decades. The former strip mine that’s been in Suzanne’s family since the 1860s is now a rolling field of grapes. “You’ve got years the land is fallow because it’s not producing money,” says David. “It’s helpful in the long run but it’s years you’re not getting anything [money] from that piece of land. So it might be good to push the government into preparing land and giving money to the farmer for making their land better in the long run.” David adds that most of the AML money hasn’t gone to restoring soils. His mother Suzanne chimes in, saying AML-funded sites often reclaimed land by improving drainage and adding utilities, but those efforts “don’t necessarily create much more than places to be paved for.”
.jpg)
.jpg)
At Patriot Gardens, a strip-mine-turned-orchard in Werth, West Virginia, bees flit between golden delicious apples, an apple first grown right in the state. Founded by the National Guard in 2016 with another AML grant, the site could eventually boast one million trees, roughly 400 jobs, and $1.5 million in tax revenue. For Michael Staton, a beekeeper for over 300 hives, it’s a great example of what AML funds could achieve. “We’re turning to some of the worst soil in the country to try new agricultural experiments,” says Staton. The mine site is generally very good for honey production; while the highly acidic soil isn’t optimal for clover, the invasive autumn olive moves in quickly, which is an excellent honey producer, along with the nitrogen-fixing black locust tree. But no season is the same: last fall the goldenrod, a tall yellow field flower, didn’t end up doing as well, though the aster, a purple, daisy-like bush flower, took off. While Staton prioritizes native pollinators and native plants, he says honeybees are important because “they don’t require the kind of soil fertility that a lot of other agriculture would require.” “We’re the first people to do this – to clear an abandoned mine and redevelop it with the apple orchards,” says Keith Bibb, the project manager of Patriot Gardens. He says his long term goal is to have the White House buy their apples.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Lee Daniels, soil scientist at West Virginia University, it can take 500 years to re-grow a single inch of topsoil. Lee Daniels says the highest use of post-mine agricultural lands in Central Appalachia is hay land and pasture, but because post-mine sites are often isolated from easy road access and utilities like water and sewage, it’s challenging to make hay and pasture projects economically viable. Instead, he’s advocating for a re-investment in reforestation. “The common thread has been native hardwood reforestation,” says Daniels. “That’s where things are going.” “This site was reclaimed post-mining in 1988 and planted in 1991. We had a 90% survival rate when we checked in 2003. We chose to plant sugar maples because they’re at the top of the hardwood food chain. It’s hard for people to imagine this is a reclaimed site. There really isn’t anything like it in the world. These sugar maples are amazing. We get to troubleshoot and test things here that you can’t do if your only goal is making money. Then others can take what we learn and apply it to their own farms. Mining employment in the area has dropped significantly, so we need to develop opportunities based on the terrain and resources we have. That’s why I like tree syrup — the sloped land is actually an advantage because you can connect your trees with tubing and use gravity to your benefit. According to the textbooks, it takes about 500 years to develop an inch of topsoil. Since 1981, we’ve been testing how mixing sandstone and siltstone can accelerate that development — and we’re seeing results.”
.jpg)