Big Muskie - Fate

Fate

Increased EPA scrutiny and a rapid drop in demand for high sulfur brown coal following the passage of the 1977 Clean Air Act, coupled with regular yearly increases in electricity costs and continued public opposition to strip mining operations in Ohio eventually made Big Muskie unprofitable to operate, and it was removed from service in 1991. Attempts to sell the machine to another coal company found little interest due to the massive costs involved in dismantling, transporting and reassembling the machine. Additionally, by 1991 the few US coal companies still practicing open-pit mining had transitioned to smaller, newer, and cheaper digging machines with much lower operating costs. The only remaining large scale open-pit brown coal operations that might have been suitable for Big Muskie's design were located in Germany, where more efficient giant bucket wheel excavators had long since made large draglines obsolete.

After sitting inoperative for 8 years, the final act for Big Muskie came in 1999 when the state of Ohio and the Environmental Protection Agency began moving to enforce the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which required all equipment be removed from former strip mines so the sites could be environmentally remediated. Since further delays would result in millions of dollars in fines, and the cost of moving the obsolete machine would also run well into the millions, the COCC opted for immediate on-site scrapping. Despite calls by enthusiasts and historians for Big Muskie to be relocated and made into a museum, in late 1999 the machine was broken down and sold for $700,000 in scrap to the Mayer-Pollock Steel Corporation. The massive bucket was preserved and relocated to a newly constructed Miners Memorial Park in Morgan County at 39°41′57″N 81°43′52″W / 39.69917°N 81.73111°W / 39.69917; -81.73111. Although presented by the COCC as a consolation gesture to those who had advocated for the entire machine's preservation as a museum, the bucket was actually donated primarily because Mayer-Pollock determined the hardened steel of the bucket was too thick to cut with acetylene torches and would cost more to cut with explosives and thermal lances than the metal itself was worth in scrap.

A wildlife park called The Wilds, which opened in 1994, was created from 10,000 acres (40 km2) of the land stripped by Big Muskie and later reclaimed. It is home to numerous species of African, Asian, and North American fauna.