LETTER Coal country’s future depends on restoration
Coal country’s future depends on restoration
Last month, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke made a stop in East Bethlehem Township to announce this year’s grants from the federal Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) Reclamation Fund. This year, $300 million will be available to 25 states and three tribes for projects that restore land and water polluted by historic coal mining. Pennsylvania will receive $55 million.
What Zinke failed to do, but should have done, was to announce the Trump administration’s support for the reauthorization of the AML Fund. The fund gets its money from a fee levied on each ton of coal produced from active mines. That fee was authorized in 1977, and it expires in 2021. If Trump and Congress really want to revitalize coal country, reauthorization of this crucial funding must be a high priority.
Federal law requires the Department of the Interior to distribute money from the fund every year. Since 1980, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Abandoned Mines has worked with numerous agencies to clean up the mess left by historic unregulated coal mining. Over the years the fund has provided more than $1.2 billion for this work that has reclaimed about 25,000 acres of mine-scarred land, replaced water supplies, restored mine- polluted streams, closed or secured mine openings and shafts, extinguished underground mine fires and stabilized homes that are sitting over mine voids.
While that is impressive, about 180,000 acres of unproductive abandoned mine land remain and 5,500 miles of streams are still too polluted by mine drainage to support aquatic life. At current funding levels, Pennsylvania is able to restore about 700 acres of mine-scarred land each year. At that pace, it will take more than 250 years to get the job done and an additional $15 billion.
Abandoned mine lands are not only dangerous and ugly, they are a drag on economic development. Restoration projects generate jobs, increase property values and improve the quality of life for people living in coal country. And land restored to usefulness and water fit to drink is more likely to persuade businesses and industries to set up shop in coal-impacted communities.
Pennsylvania could receive an additional $258 million over the next five years if Congress passes the RECLAIM ACT, HR 1731, this spring. The RECLAIM legislation would allow a one-time withdrawal of funds from the AML Fund which would create even more job opportunities in Pennsylvania’s hard-hit areas. Thirteen of the 19 Pennsylvania members of Congress are supporting RECLAIM in an unusual bipartisan coalition.
Hopefully Zinke and the administration will join the delegation in supporting this huge jobs-generating legislation.
Aimee Erickson
and R. John Dawes
Erickson is executive director of the Citizens Coal Council, and Dawes is executive director of the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds.