The area where much of the extraction is taking place was a friggin' toxic wasteland long before it ever got developed. In fact many of the reclaimed areas look better than they did before they were mined.Doesn't matter what you call them, they still look like the azzhole of the world and its suffering from a.n.a.l leakage.
Although they are digging deeper in some areas now, much of what has been extracted was only inches below the surface, toxifying and ultimately killing anything that grew there. Brown patches of grass and scrub. Trees that were deformed and dead or dying. Seepage into the waterways after a good rain or heavy thaw.
It was no pure, pristine landscape.