The overall purpose of this project is to evaluate the biological and economic feasibility of restoring high-quality forests on mined land, and to measure carbon sequestration and wood production benefits that would be achieved from forest restoration procedures. In this segment of work, our goal was to review methods for estimating tree survival, growth, yield and value of forests growing on surface mined land in the eastern coalfields of the USA, and to determine the extent to which carbon sequestration is influenced by these factors. Public Law 95-87, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA), mandates that mined land be reclaimed in a fashion that renders the land at least as productive after mining as it was before mining. In the central Appalachian region, where prime farmland and economic development opportunities for mined land are scarce, the most practical land use choices are hayland/pasture, wildlife habitat, or forest land. Since 1977, the majority of mined land has been reclaimed as hayland/pasture or wildlife habitat, which is less expensive to reclaim than forest land, since there are no tree planting costs. As a result, there are now hundreds of thousands of hectares of grasslands and scrublands in various …

Two new Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) groundwater monitoring wells were installed at single-shell tank Waste Management Area (WMA) A-AX in fiscal year 2003 to fulfill commitments for well installations proposed in the draft Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order M-24-00. Well 299-E24-22 has been installed upgradient and well 299-E25-93 downgradient of the WMA. Specific objectives for these wells include monitoring the impact, if any, that potential releases from inside the WMA may have on current groundwater conditions (i.e., improved network coverage); differentiating upgradient groundwater contamination from contaminants released at the WMA; and improving the determination of groundwater flow direction (i.e., improved water table determinations). This report supplies the information obtained during drilling, characterization, and installation of the two new groundwater monitoring wells, 299-E25-93 and 299-E24-22. This document also provides a compilation of hydrogeologic and well construction information obtained during drilling, well construction, well development, pump installation, aquifer testing, and sample collection/analysis activities.