... because a mine is a terrible
thing to waste ...
Hello and welcome to Project Pit Stop: a home base of aggregate advocacy through enhancement reclamation education and outreach.
My name is Libby Morrison. Portland native, Oregon State Graduate, lifelong athlete, and aggregate-nerd extraordinaire. I'm an early career professional in the aggregate industry, specializing in "enhancement reclamation" of sand and gravel pits and quarries. This site is dedicated to all things mine reclamation and restoration, and is bent on sharing heroic tales of enhancement reclamation throughout the world.
My name is Libby Morrison. Portland native, Oregon State Graduate, lifelong athlete, and aggregate-nerd extraordinaire. I'm an early career professional in the aggregate industry, specializing in "enhancement reclamation" of sand and gravel pits and quarries. This site is dedicated to all things mine reclamation and restoration, and is bent on sharing heroic tales of enhancement reclamation throughout the world.
Project Pit Stop is the actualization of an aggre-geek dream of mine that began in 2012. As a graduate student at Oregon State University I fell, by what has turned out to be beautiful serendipity, into the field of aggregate mining.
Crushed stone, sand, and gravel resources- collectively termed aggregates- are some of the most extracted natural resources in the world. There are tens of thousands of pits (both active and closed) across the U.S. alone and many are left as little more than "giant bathtubs" (as one of my interviewees from my initial Master's so poignantly put it). Yet these sites hold restorative potential only limited by the imagination. A small percentage of aggregate sites capitalize on this potential and have been reclaimed or restored into often beautiful, innovative projects that benefit society. They have become public parks, amphitheaters, golf courses, shopping centers, technology centers, habitat for endangered species, water parks, research sites, productive farmland... When a pit or quarry is turned into one of these things (or any number of other projects) its restorative potential is achieved; this process is called enhancement reclamation.
Enhancement reclamation is term I coined during my first MS and is defined thusly:
"The actualization of quarry or sand and gravel pits'
secondary beneficial use potential, achieved through
reclamation or restoration."
Said another way, enhancement reclamation is the process of turning a pit or quarry into something that benefits society, rather than just leaving it as a big hole in the ground. It also goes above and beyond standard reclamation practices.
I believe in enhancement reclamation is a powerful tool for good. It can add benefit to local communities (think parks or shopping centers), improve the environment (think habitat for endangered species and wetlands), and build relationships (think enhancement reclamation to farmland, and think of that land being returned to its previous state so farmers can carry on their legacy even after it has been mined. Sidebar: There are a lot of conflicts around aggregate mining. If you're interested read my first thesis, or better yet contact me). I believe in this so much I dedicated my whole graduate career studying enhancement reclamation of aggregate pits and quarries and now continue to dedicate my career to it.
This website is the first database in the world that brings together every example of enhancement reclamation I can get my hands on. It is meant to be a resource for anyone interested in aggregate mining to learn more, promote enhancement reclamation, and (to be very candid) as a tool for the aggregate industry to demonstrate that mining is not inherently bad. Mining gets a bad rap in society. Lots of this comes from other kinds of mining and the environmental devastation it can cause (think coal mining, mountain top removal, or acid mine drainage) and the criticism is well-deserved. But aggregate mining is a little different. Yes, it certainly comes with its fair share of environmental issues- but these issues are just not on par with coal mining, the oil sands in Canada, or precious metals mining. Many of these mines either are, were, or are candidates to be listed as Superfund sites. This is not true of aggregate mining. However, simply because it is a type of mining, which is generalized by society, it is judged alongside the rest of the mining family. In my opinion though, the biggest issue associated with aggregate mining is land use, and this is an issue we can tackle. I have seen it.
Aggregate mining competes with other land uses including agriculture, development, and environmentally sensitive habitats. Yet the issue of competing land uses can be addressed (at least to a point) by enhancement reclamation. We can have our cake (or, in this case, aggregate) and eat it too. The land can be mined for minerals then turned into a golf course. Or park. Or even productive farmland.
This website is dedicated to the lighter side of mining. The beauty and benefits of finding peace, collaboration, and innovation in the midst of competing industries. I do not ascribe at all to the notion that the economy and society and the environment are incompatible.
Enhancement reclamation and Project Pit Stop is dedicated to celebrating win-win scenarios. It aims to stop pits from just being pits... and bring you along for the ride, too.
Because I encourage you to stop thinking about aggregate pits and the mining industry as just evil, or bad, or wrong. We need aggregates! They're our roads, building foundations, bridges... the literal building blocks of society. And pits and quarries can become something new and great once the materials have been extracted.
I encourage you to (literally!) take a pit stop and check out an enhancement reclamation project in your area. I think you'll be surprised by what you find!
Last, I encourage you (and strongly request!) that if you know of an enhancement reclamation project in your area that is not included in my database, please reach out and add to this project: my great aggre-geek dream of saving the world one pit stop at a time.
I believe in enhancement reclamation is a powerful tool for good. It can add benefit to local communities (think parks or shopping centers), improve the environment (think habitat for endangered species and wetlands), and build relationships (think enhancement reclamation to farmland, and think of that land being returned to its previous state so farmers can carry on their legacy even after it has been mined. Sidebar: There are a lot of conflicts around aggregate mining. If you're interested read my first thesis, or better yet contact me). I believe in this so much I dedicated my whole graduate career studying enhancement reclamation of aggregate pits and quarries and now continue to dedicate my career to it.
This website is the first database in the world that brings together every example of enhancement reclamation I can get my hands on. It is meant to be a resource for anyone interested in aggregate mining to learn more, promote enhancement reclamation, and (to be very candid) as a tool for the aggregate industry to demonstrate that mining is not inherently bad. Mining gets a bad rap in society. Lots of this comes from other kinds of mining and the environmental devastation it can cause (think coal mining, mountain top removal, or acid mine drainage) and the criticism is well-deserved. But aggregate mining is a little different. Yes, it certainly comes with its fair share of environmental issues- but these issues are just not on par with coal mining, the oil sands in Canada, or precious metals mining. Many of these mines either are, were, or are candidates to be listed as Superfund sites. This is not true of aggregate mining. However, simply because it is a type of mining, which is generalized by society, it is judged alongside the rest of the mining family. In my opinion though, the biggest issue associated with aggregate mining is land use, and this is an issue we can tackle. I have seen it.
Aggregate mining competes with other land uses including agriculture, development, and environmentally sensitive habitats. Yet the issue of competing land uses can be addressed (at least to a point) by enhancement reclamation. We can have our cake (or, in this case, aggregate) and eat it too. The land can be mined for minerals then turned into a golf course. Or park. Or even productive farmland.
This website is dedicated to the lighter side of mining. The beauty and benefits of finding peace, collaboration, and innovation in the midst of competing industries. I do not ascribe at all to the notion that the economy and society and the environment are incompatible.
Enhancement reclamation and Project Pit Stop is dedicated to celebrating win-win scenarios. It aims to stop pits from just being pits... and bring you along for the ride, too.
Because I encourage you to stop thinking about aggregate pits and the mining industry as just evil, or bad, or wrong. We need aggregates! They're our roads, building foundations, bridges... the literal building blocks of society. And pits and quarries can become something new and great once the materials have been extracted.
I encourage you to (literally!) take a pit stop and check out an enhancement reclamation project in your area. I think you'll be surprised by what you find!
Last, I encourage you (and strongly request!) that if you know of an enhancement reclamation project in your area that is not included in my database, please reach out and add to this project: my great aggre-geek dream of saving the world one pit stop at a time.