Pennsylvania awarded $21M for abandoned mine reclamation

Pennsylvania will receive more than $21 million in federal money to address the health and safety issues stemming from abandoned coal mines.

According to the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), the grant is part of more than $124 million awarded to states and Tribes for Abandoned Mine Land (AML) reclamation efforts. The OSMRE announced the grant awards on Tuesday.

“OSMRE is proud to announce the availability of the 2024 AML fee-based grants,” OSMRE Principal Deputy Director Sharon Buccino. “These grants will ensure our state and Tribal partners have the resources needed to continue their decades of successful reclamation work on our nation’s abandoned mine land sites.”

The grants are part of the AML Reclamation Program that addresses the hazards and environmental degradation posed by abandoned coal mines, officials said. Funding for the grants comes from fees collected on all coal produced in the U.S. The AML fee was reauthorized and extended as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, ensuring that the grants will be available to states and Tribes through 2035.

For fiscal year 2024, 24 coal-producing states and two Tribal AML Reclamation programs were eligible to receive the grants as outlined by Congressional formulas. Pennsylvania will receive more than $21,482,000, while neighboring West Virginia will receive $15,308,000, while Kentucky will receive, $7,400,000 and Ohio will receive $3818,000. Only one other state received more funding than Pennsylvania – Wyoming with $25, 221,000.

So far, the OSMRE has distributed an estimated $8.5 billion in AML fee-based grants to address the physical hazards to lands and waters mined and abandoned or left inadequately restored. Officials said the AML fee-based grants are in addition to other BIL funding, and Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization program funding.