RIDGEWAY, S.C. - Throughout its 11 years of operation, the sprawling Kennecott-Ridgeway mine off U.S. Highway 21 produced 1.5 million ounces of pure gold and 28 tons of silver.
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But getting the gold was a costly affair, especially for the environment. Millions of tons of rock from pits as deep as 600 feet were smashed into dust and treated with a cyanide solution to extract the precious metals.
When production ceased in 1999, the ravaged landscape created both challenges and opportunities for scientists such as Gene Eidson and Oscar Flite.
"Our goal is to restore this site and turn it into something that has great benefit," said Dr. Eidson, the president of the Augusta-based Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy.
Dr. Eidson hopes to transform the largest gold mine east of the Mississippi River into the largest "restoration botanical park" on the planet.
The academy, which created Phinizy Swamp Nature Park in Augusta, is using a $300,000 grant from the mining company - Utah-based Kennecott Minerals Co. - to get started.
"It's a very disturbed site - which makes it ripe for us to test all the theories of ecology," he said. "We also want this place to be available for universities and grad students for the next 50 to 100 years."
So far, two mammoth pits that once yielded gold-bearing ore are being filled with rainwater and eventually will become lakes suitable for recreation, Dr. Eidson said.
Constructed wetlands planted with wool grass, cattails and other plants are slowing the flow of water and curbing erosion. Pine trees that can thrive in acidic soil are being planted by the thousands.
Best of all, Dr. Eidson said, everything is being recorded in what will become the most extensive database on pit mine lakes in the world. In the future, such data can help restore other mine-damaged sites.
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Oscar Flite a Clemson University doctoral student throws out fish food to blue gills at the South Lake pit at the Kennecott Ridgeway Mining Co. in South Carolina.
ANNETTE M. DROWLETTE/STAFF
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"There are a lot of theories of reforestation," he said. "Here, we can test them all - and watch them over decades to see how they work."
The extent to which mining altered the 2,200-acre site is almost unfathomable, said Mr. Flite, who is completing his doctorate at Clemson University.
Metal-bearing rock deep within the earth oxidizes when it is exposed to the atmosphere, creating acidic conditions that are dangerous to plants. Even wind flow and temperatures are altered by the man-made mountains of tailings - the dirt left behind in the mining process.
There are many conventional methods of mine reclamation, but research can help devise better programs for long-term recovery of affected lands.
"We're looking for innovation," Dr. Eidson said. "How do you put it back together so it functions? We want to create something that self-sustains - that we could just walk away from it if we wanted to."
The mining company's role in the partnership includes helping transform the mine's administration building into a research laboratory with classrooms and office space for visiting scientists and students.
Dr. Eidson, a Clemson professor, taught restoration ecology on the premises this year and hopes to expand those programs in coming years.
The mining company also will help create exhibits about the mining process and the area's history, said Roy Duckett, Kennecott-Ridgeway's environmental and reclamation services manager.
The mine, he said, once had 200 employees who worked day and night. Gold was extracted from ore and molded into 70-pound bars, each about half the size of a loaf of bread.
They were taken under heavy security to the U.S. Postal Service, which shipped them to gold refineries. The gold, he added, is present in the ore in very small quantities, requiring a ton of rock to produce a gram of gold.
Dr. Eidson hopes the mine will someday become much like Phinizy Swamp Nature Park, where a once-polluted flood plain is slowly returning to its original identity as a Southern river swamp.
After the swamp near Augusta Regional Airport was cleaned up through the use of artificial wetlands - also devised by the academy - it has expanded to become a popular research and education site.
The nature park, with boardwalks, wildlife exhibits and natural areas, played host to an estimated 8,000 students this year.
THE KENNECOTT-RIDGEWAY MINE
LOCATION: Fairfield County, S.C.
SIZE: 2,200 acres
ACTIVE MINING: 1988 to 1999, by Kennecott Minerals Co. of Utah
EXCAVATED ORE: 100 million tons
GOLD YIELD: 1.5 million ounces
SILVER YIELD: 900,000 ounces
DEEPEST POINT: 600 feet
Reach Robert Pavey at (706) 868-1222, ext. 119, or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
