The book I read to research this post was The Remediation Of Abandoned Surface Coal Mining Sites by Alena Mudroch et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book or rather ebook was very expensive and aimed at professionals in this field. I bought it because it looked like an interesting subject. Most surface mining is done in the former republic of East Germany and that along with an area in Poland & the Czech Republic is called the Black Triangle of Europe due to the mishandling of converting former surface coal mining back into something broadly of environmental use. In East Germany in particular huge amounts of coal called lignite have been mined so the best solution is to turn it into a lake. In parts of that country the water table has dropped by 30 metres due to the huge amount of mining. In parts they have seams 50 metres deep and subsequently industrial waste has been dumped there. Where coal is exposed to the water in these lakes there can be toxicity so they need a soil layer to cover it. Also studies have shown these lakes do best where there is a good variety of plant and animal life which have to be introduced. The water in these lakes has to be pumped in quite quickly to avoid it going toxic. Wheat has been found to be good for planting in these areas because it will grow in little soil. In Alberta, Canada where they had similiar surface coal mining and turned it into lakes they found the rainbow trout grew bigger and were healthier than in the natural lakes. They did have problems with there not being enough cover to protect them from predators but that has been resolved. This book is only around 150 pages but makes very interesting reading.
