Lavender farming may save the desolated mining sites on mountaintops which are left stripped of life and any potential use. The evergreen shrub, which is used industrially for its aromatic fragrance, seems like the only form of life that can survive the barren rocky terrain left behind by mountaintop removal mining. A start-up has taken notice of this so it began farming the plant in the defunct mines of the Appalachian Mountains. In West Virginia alone, there are around 330,000 acres of this type of wasteland and each acre could generate around $10,000, making it a potential $3.3 billion industry.
Lavender could bring desolated mining sites back to life
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