I've worked on an opencast restoration project and there is no way the land can be returned to how it was, in any real sense. What is recreated is a shallow representation of what was before - one which fool most people, of course, but one which is species poor and dysfunctional. Because of the down that people have on open water - somebody might drown - when pools (puddles) are created, then they become quickly populated by birds, which seem to show how successful the scheme is.