Hernshaw, W.Va. (AP) — A small plot of budding lavender overlooks a mostly barren, partly-reclaimed mountainside, contrasting the old and new.

"That's what it all used to look like before it was reclaimed," Aaron Smith, of Charleston, said as he pointed to the mountainside.

Smith started out as an intern and now works full-time for the Green Mining Model Business Program, which aims to turn the reclaimed area of the former Pritchard Mine site into "purple mountains."

As Smith drove his pickup truck over the winding, rough, gravel road to what he and others with the program call the "demo site,...