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• 39 • <br />ditional reclamation relies upon legal or political strictures or covenants <br />requiring continued legal responsibility for reclamation efforts beyond ex- <br />pectable pericxis of tenureship of most surface coal leases. Since English <br />Common Law and its derivative state and federal statutes in the United <br />States make most notable exceptions to so-called 'Acts of God', the proba- <br />bility of holding a mining operator or his heirs legally responsible for <br />reclamation for a minimum necessary period of 100 years seems highly improb- <br />able. Plant communities recognize no unforseen circumstances and must adapt or perish <br />without protection of the law. An alternative that might be considered is <br />some form of reclamation insurance underwritten by the federal government <br />or private insurers. The federal flood insurance program is an example <br />that illustrates an apparent willingness of the federal government to sup- <br />port absurdly high risk situations. Since public fiords would presumably <br />be used in such a program, full risk evaluation slwuld be conducted before <br />submission of a proposal for such a program to Congress. <br />If one demands reclamation that may be less dramatic and less useful for <br />promotional public relations brochures but which clearly guarantees progres- <br />sive biogeochemical development of soil and plant communities toward those <br />representative of undisturbed lands, then probabilities for success are <br />considerably different than those for conditional reclamation, It is not <br />yet clear that stockpiling soil, fertilization, and irrigation are necessarily <br />constructive procedures for reclamation. Neither is it clear the precipita- <br />tion serves as any valid index of probability of reclamation success nor is <br />