In Appalachian coal country, the underground mines have been shut for decades. But the legacy of coal mining remains in its waterways — and it’s toxic. Streams and ponds gleam from the orange acidic water that fills them, the result of a poisonous discharge of sulfuric acid and iron known as acid mine drainage.

Allan Comp was initially skeptical that much could be done to revitalize the ravaged coal country towns, yet during the past six years the 2007 Purpose Prize Fellow founded an Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team that has resulted in massive environmental cleanup efforts in eight states by volunteers who have contributed more than 100,000 hours. In the process, they have restored the soul of local communities, too.

Comp first saw the devastation wrought by past coal-mining practices in 1993 while he was working for the National Heritage Areas Program that is part of the National Park Service. His job was to help stimulate economic development, education and historical preservation in a 10-county area stretching from northeastern Pennsylvania to central Alabama.

He was struck not only by the environmental blight but also by the despair he felt around him. “You have to understand that in coal country, most people’s sense of the future is pretty dismal – still. It’s very poor. It’s tough,” he explained. “There’s a company-town mindset that says you have to keep your head down and stay out of trouble. And if you’re looking for anybody to fix anything, you wait for the company to fix it. But the company’s been gone for 50 years.”

In 1994 he started a cleanup project in Vintondale, Penn., called AMD&ART – short for acid mine drainage and art. He enlisted scientists, artists, local historians, VISTA volunteers and community members who transformed the blighted land into a 35-acre park enlivened by public art and reclaimed wetlands flowing with clear, treated water.

“The site was as much about healing as it was about fixing the water,” Comp said. “If the water hadn’t been fixed, the site would have failed. But if it hadn’t addressed those larger issues of a deeply conflicted history and a hopelessness about the future, it would have failed, too.”

The success of the project enticed Comp back for more. He joined the U.S. Department of the Interior and in 2001 launched the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team. The Office of Surface Mining (OSM), where he currently works, started the Clean Streams Initiative to work directly with small watershed groups trying to clean up the mess from pre-regulatory coal mining.

“I am the one legislated position for that effort,” Comp said. “There’s one other person who works with me. So the real challenge is how to we use what little leverage we’ve got and my time to make something really helpful.”

The answer lay in pairing up the efforts of the OSM with existing watershed groups and teams of VISTA volunteers. “One of the outgrowths of that whole AMD & ART project was really learning how to make the VISTA system work,” he noted.

It’s clear that he has figured it out. VISTA’s role has grown from eight positions in two states in 2003 to 59 slots in nine states.

Most of the VISTA volunteers are brand new college grads; some are retirees. Supported by a stipend, all make a full-time commitment to national service. They engage in water quality monitoring, education and outreach, sustainability, economic development initiatives and fundraising, along with professional development. And they’re pulling rabbits out of hats to find resources for reclamation projects.

Watershed teams in eight states have raised nearly $8 million to help fund reclamation efforts – a remarkable accomplishment in a region devoid of significant funding sources. “They’re like sniffing bloodhounds looking for every nickel they can find,” Comp boasted.

Art is very much a part of their efforts. For example, a watershed group in Eastern Pennsylvania worked in tandem with a high school shop class to create a sculpture that memorialized a major local mining disaster that had ripped apart a community. “That sculpture really brought that community back together in ways that were pretty remarkable,” Comp recalled.

He plans on replicating those efforts elsewhere. “If we fix all of the water in Appalachia with a good science solution – which is theoretically possible – we wouldn’t fix Appalachia,” he said. “Until we really engage the full spectrum of the culture, we’re never going to do successful reclamation work. We may scientifically reclaim some piece of land, but we won’t help heal a region.”