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Just across the Montana border from Wyoming, this modestly sized coal mining operation is a good indication of how range land, once owned and controlled by Native Americans (it stands less than a hundred miles from Hardin, site of Custer Battlefield National Monument), can be brought to other uses. The large drag-line scraper is used to remove "overburdern" (read: soil) and the coal that lies in veins below the surface is exposed. The coal is removed, and the top soil eventually replaced, and the ground reseeded. It is far from in its "pristine" condition, but it as a good and thorough a job as the mining company can attain.
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