idleprocess
Flashaholic
The folks moved to SW Arkansas some 13 years ago. There was an open-pit coal mine on I-30 between Mt Vernon TX and Mt Pleasant TX that was one of the few visual highlights of the trip. The generating station it supported was on the ropes at the time and mining operations halted in 2011 with the plant idling that same year, restarting in 2014 with Wyoming coal then winding down in 2018. The large-scale equipment - walking draglines, bucket wheel excavator, crosspit spreader - spent years reclaiming the land before completing the work a few years ago. The scale of these machines impressed from the highway; some utility promo for an unfortunately-timed Discovery documentary gives a hint of their scale.Mines really don't have to do much at all, to reclaim the land back to original.
Google Earth can produce a timelapse of the area 1984 - 2022 showing the continuous mining-reclaiming process. While the process of removing and replacing literal megatons of earth inevitably alters the landscape (the various pockmark lakes being one of the bigger tells) and likely takes many years of waiting out subsidence and the re-establishment of drainage patterns it will heal in a reasonable amount of time. There was another coal mine adjacent to nearby Sulphur Springs whose reclamation process is more complete.