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Peabody Energy's Black Beauty unit has been awarded the Director's Award for Excellence in Surface Mining Reclamation Awards from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Surface Mining, the federal agency responsible for regulating environmental impacts of coal production. Black Beauty won the prestigious award for exemplary agricultural post-mining land use.

In presenting the award, Deputy Interior Secretary Steve Griles said, "These winning projects reflect superb innovation and planning that have met some of the highest reclamation standards for protecting the environment. You are setting new examples for environmental compatibility in the production of coal while meeting the nation's energy needs."

Black Beauty is the largest coal producer in the Midwest. The majority of the acreage mined and reclaimed at these mines is prime farmland, the highest land use standard encountered in mining reclamation. The company's award- winning entry included all prime farm reclamation at past and present mining operations.

"That's the unique part of this project," said Bryce West, Black Beauty's director of reclamation. "It exemplifies that this is our normal way of doing things, that it has been for a number of years, and that we plan to continue doing reclamation this way. Every acre of prime farmland that has been disturbed by mining has been or will be reclaimed to prime farmland standards."

The success of Black Beauty's reclamation is measured by how quickly the bonds it must post to ensure that the land is returned to its original use are released. To date Black Beauty has obtained final bond release on a total of 7,333 acres of agricultural land in Illinois and Indiana, including 5,071 acres of prime farmland. More than 95 percent of this land had been leased from private landowners and has now been returned to them to be used again for productive farming that contributes to the local agricultural economy.

Black Beauty Coal Company is a subsidiary of Peabody Energy , the world's largest coal company. Its coal products fuel more than 9 percent of all U.S. electricity generation and more than 2 percent of worldwide electricity generation.

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SOURCE: Peabody Energy