Group presses for funding to clean up abandoned mines
MELCROFT – Members of a local watershed have teamed up with a federation of grassroots groups to push to get a tax aimed at cleaning up abandoned coal mines across the country extended until 2006. The Abandoned Mine Land (AML) program, which initially expired this month, was extended until next June with the help of U.S. senators, Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Robert Byrd, a Democrat from Sophia, W.Va.
However if the program is not reauthorized, millions of acres of abandoned mines will go un-reclaimed not to mention their continued threat to public safety, supporters of the bill said.
Congress created AML as part of the 1977 Surface Mining law enabling the program to collect fees from current coal operators which was then distributed to state and tribal governments for use in cleaning up health, safety and environmental problems caused by pre law mining.
Under the program, coal operators pay 35 cents per ton of surface-mined coal and 15 cents per ton of underground mined coal with the money designated toward cleaning up coal mines that were abandoned before that date.
Beverly Braverman, coal council state representative and MWA executive director, said the program needs reauthorized into law once again to avoid further extensions.
“When the law was first passed there was such optimism that all of the mine drainage discharges would be cleaned up,” said Braverman.
Since 1978, U.S. coal operators have paid more than $7 billion in production taxes designated to clean up mine sites that were abandoned before the nationally implemented strict reclamation rules.
But, the AML has not met its goals simply because regulators have spent more than $1.3 billion earmarked for the program on other projects.
While the AML expired in 2004, groups such as MWA that are a part of the Citizens Coal Council (CCC) have been working to get the program reauthorized since 2001.
Nationwide, it was estimated that more than $4 billion is needed for abandoned coal mine cleanup.
The only problem, said Braverman, is that most of the funding covers construction, leaving virtually nothing for administration costs.
The MWA is a non-profit community-based state corporation concerned with the preservation and remediation of the Indian Creek Watershed from Jones Mills, Westmoreland County, to the Youghiogheny River in Fayette County.
The association formed in 1994 and began working on the acid mine drainage issue in the watershed after residents became aware of the extent and seriousness of the problem. Although many residents knew of the acid water or red water for years, they didn’t realize the problem had invaded people’s homes, yards, agricultural fields and springs, nor did they know of the levels of aluminum in the miles of streams and ponds where the local children swam.
With millions of acres of AML sites in the U.S., more than 250,000 in Pennsylvania alone, these sites range in problems from dangerous high-walls and pits filled with polluted water to areas that have become illegal dumping grounds to hazardous airshafts.
While many of the sites are health and safety threats, others pollute precious water resources, Braverman said.
“Those of us who live with the problems of dangerous mine sites and contaminated water who have to tell our children not to play in the stream because it is polluted with toxic levels of aluminum and those of us who carry water because we do not have a potable water supply due to abandoned coal mine discharges thank our legislators that recognized these problems and are working to help us correct them,” said Braverman.
Braverman said the MWA’s current projects include the restoration of the Indian Creek Water Shed in addition to the Kalp discharge site along Route 711 in Romney.
Indian Creek serves as the watershed’s main artery while the Kalp site is one of eight major discharge areas and the largest designated for remediation.
According to Braverman, both projects were estimated to cost between $2.5 and $3 million while the MWA is winding down on the first phase with horizontal drilling into both mine pools that began in June. “We’re just closing the sites and finishing,” Braverman said.
Braverman added that the MWA received a $1.66 million grant issued by the state’s Growing Greener Program for the Kalp discharge project.
Braverman anticipated both projects to be completed within the next three years.
In the event the AML program is not reauthorized, Braverman said the remaining funding would eventually dry up, leaving MWA and other non-profit coalitions looking for other sources to continue the remediation.
The overall goal of the CCC is to see more funding distributed based on historic production, an increase in funding for “minimum program states,” maintenance or increase in the AML fee and continued funding for clean up of sites with environmental and quality of life impacts.