In Roxana, KY, on former strip mined land, we at the Appalachian Rekindling Project know that restoration can and often does look like tending. This project deploys Camellia sinensis, the tea plant, as a natural phytoremediator to draw aluminum deposits from a contaminated pond, with the ultimate goal of achieving water quality safe for a herd of bison: a keystone species being returned to our ancestral lands as part of a broader ecological and cultural renewal. These will join sunflowers and mushrooms in their remediation work. Aluminum toxicity is a pervasive challenge across former mine sites in this region, where acid mine drainage leaches aluminum into waterways and renders them hostile to wildlife. This project offers a living, low-impact solution. It is rooted in science, guided by Indigenous ecological knowledge, and designed to heal land that has for too long been treated as expendable. No land and no people are expendable, all deserve tending.

Over three planting and removal seasons, community members will cultivate Camellia sinensis in and around the affected pond. Tea plants are well-documented hyperaccumulators of aluminum — they absorb Al³⁺ ions from acidic soils and water into their biomass at exceptional rates. By planting, allowing uptake over a growing season, and then harvesting and using biochar, each cycle progressively reduces aluminum concentrations. Water quality has been tested prior to planting and will be tested again after each season, creating a documented record of measurable progress. The total project budget of $14,080 covers plant stock, tools, protective gear, and modest labor stipends, ensuring that the people most connected to this land are compensated for their role in its recovery. Economic wellbeing is important to the just transition we advocate for.

The biodiversity benefits extend well beyond the pond. As water quality improves, the project protects the species on the land and encourages the return of others. The bison at the center of our effort on this property are themselves ecological engineers, their grazing and movement patterns shape grassland structure, disperse native seeds, and create microhabitats that support dozens of other species. On the climate front, vegetative cover stabilizes eroding soils, and the long-term vision of a bison-grazed native grassland builds toward a landscape that sequesters carbon and absorbs floodwater, which is critical resilience in a county so impacted by flooding.

The communities of central Appalachia have borne a disproportionate share of the costs of coal extraction, and Indigenous peoples in this region carry an especially layered relationship to that harm. We are stewards of lands that were taken, industrialized, and left behind. Indigenous leadership here is not incidental; it brings traditional ecological knowledge, practices of reciprocity, and a long-term vision of stewardship that short-term extractive models never could. The return of bison to this landscape carries deep cultural meaning, reconnecting people to animals, foodways, and land-based practices that colonization sought to sever. This project is, in that sense, both remediation and reclamation.