Pennsylvania receives $27.4M mine reclamation grant

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The U.S. Department of the Interior recently awarded Pennsylvania a $27.4 million grant through the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act’s (SMCRA) Abandoned Mine Land (AML) grant program.

The grant is part of more than $152.22 million distributed nationwide through the program. An additional $115 million also was distributed through the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization (AMLER) grant program.

“The Abandoned Mine Land grant programs provide an important opportunity to revitalize local economies, support jobs, and address environmental impacts to communities from these legacy developments,” said Laura Daniel Davis, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Land and Minerals Management. “The job of cleaning up our lands and waters and revitalizing our communities doesn’t end with this round of grant announcements — or the next. We look forward to working with Congress to ensure that we can make the needed investments to clean up abandoned mines, as well as orphan oil and gas wells, across the country.”

AML provides grants to the 25 coal-producing states and three Tribal AML Reclamation Programs according to a congressionally mandated formula.

AMLER provides grants to the six states and three Tribes with the greatest amount of unfunded abandoned mine land problems. Funding is for mine land reclamation.