MaryD Reclamation Project, Schuylkill County

By Robert E. Hughes, Luzerne Conservation District and Eastern PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation

New recent amendments to the Federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 legislation, often referred in the environmental community as “Title IV,” will provide a much-needed injection of funding for abandoned mine reclamation and mine drainage abatement into Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is expected to receive at least $1.5 billion over the next 15 years to clean up the worst Priority 1 (health) and 2 (safety) sites, which include dangerous highwalls, unmarked shafts, unstable vertical cliffs and crop falls, water-filled pits and sites with abandoned equipment and buildings.

The Department of Environmental Protection has estimated the total Pennsylvania abandoned mine land clean-up price tag at $15 billion, which includes remediating mine drainage across the State that impacts nearly 4,600 stream miles.

For the first time, there will be guaranteed funding for clean-up from fees collected from the coal companies, stopping the practice of Congressional Appropriations Committees creating annual tug-of-wars over the fund distribution as well as diversion of funds to unrelated Federal projects.

The idle Anthracite mine-scarred lands of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Schuylkill Counties will have the opportunity to be dramatically transformed, reclaimed, and redeveloped, to best suit the needs of the surrounding areas that have been idle for decades.

Community leaders, environmental and economic development groups, as well as regional Chambers of Commerce’s and industrial development authorities can assist the Commonwealth in prioritizing projects that will not only eliminate priority health and safety hazards that dot the Northeast Region, but can also begin to attract new businesses, commercial and industrial development, extension of existing coal field communities with new housing market opportunities, recreational opportunities, tourism, and of course, most importantly, job creation.

The December 2006 amendments to “Title IV” were part of a much larger bill, the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, one of the very last acts passed by the outgoing 109th Congress.

A brief synopsis of the amendments to date follows to digest what is most important to Northeastern PA.

Reclamation Fees & State Funding

First, the reclamation fees will be extended; however, there will be a decrease in reclamation fees from active coal mining operations over the 14 year period. The authority to collect the reclamation fee on each ton of coal mined in the United States was extended another 14 years, but with a two-tiered decrease over the next six years to 80 percent of the current levels (35 cents to 28 cents per ton of surface-mined coal; 15 cents to 12 cents per ton of deep mined coal). After 14 years (2021), collection of reclamation fees will end, and funding to states will extend to 2022.

The 20 percent reduction and 14-year limit of fees were compromises in getting the law passed. Second, full funding from reclamation fees will be mandated to historic coal producing states, such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The full amount of money collected from reclamation fees (minus the portion allocated to the Federal Office of Surface Mining) will now go directly to the states, rather than be appropriated by Congress.

In past years, Congress was stingy with their appropriations, resulting in an unspent balance of nearly $1.8 billion in the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund that had severely hampered Pennsylvania’s progress in reclaiming additional abandoned mine lands and improving the quality of life in our Anthracite coal field communities.

This change alone, was almost a miraculous accomplishment!

Third, the funds will be distributed according to reclamation need. The formula that determines how much funding goes to each of the various states has changed to generally direct future fees to states based on reclamation need and Pennsylvania needs more than its fair share. There will be a funding progression period where States will receive partial amounts of the reclamation funding due to them during the next five years, allowing them time gear up to the higher grant levels. The money initially withheld by Congress will be paid in later years.

Water Quality

From a water quality standpoint, and from the color of our orange-tainted streams that flow into the Lackawanna, Susquehanna, and Schuylkill Rivers, that eventually drain into the Chesapeake Bay, there is an opportunity for the Commonwealth to allow up to 30 percent set-aside of the funds for abandoned mine drainage abatement, operation, and maintenance of our Region’s notorious mine discharges such as the Old Forge Borehole, Duryea Outfall, Solomons Creek Boreholes, Honey Pot Outfall, Gravity Slope #1, Buttonwood Shaft, and the Vandling discharge, to name just a few.

The maximum percentage of a state’s annual grant that can be used to address abandoned mine drainage has increased from 10 percent to up to 30 percent, at the State’s discretion.

With recent developments in innovative mine water treatment technologies and the potential for the resource recovery of iron and aluminum oxides that color our rivers and streams hues of orange to skies of gray, there are opportunities to eliminate the precipitation of metals into our communities’ watersheds and backyards, and turn the pollutants into profits.

Remining Provision

Yet another positive outcome of the “Title IV” legislative amendments to the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, is that State’s can now give additional remining incentives to industry by offering Federal incentives for remining, daylighting deeper coal veins, going back into abandoned mine sites that would not likely be reclaimed by industry without the incentives for a third or fourth cut at the coal and then reclaiming the sites back to approximate original contours according to today’s current mining and reclamation standards.

Economic Development and National Security Opportunities

Pennsylvania must be prepared to use the anticipated future allocations wisely and in the most efficient, strategic way possible across Pennsylvania and throughout the Northeastern to seriously look at the existing abandoned mine land inventory and sit down with regional community business, economic, and environmental leaders to capitalize on locations that are high priorities, while at the same time will create huge returns on the investment in terms of jobs, economic development, and quality of life issues.

Our community leaders have a moral obligation to build our communities in the Northeastern up, for our families, and our children’s families, by helping out the Commonwealth in making decisions where the environment isn’t pitted against new development, since our communities in the region have already made enough sacrifices for decades in the best interest of the country, let alone Pennsylvania.

We have been left literally “taking our lumps” of coal for decades. The Federal Office of Surface Mining must review project proposals before they can be added to the inventory.

What’s even more ironic and related to national security is the fact that Northeastern Pennsylvania is slowly becoming the talk of Wall Street, termed “Wall Street West.”

Future reclamation and economic redevelopment of our mine lands are within a 60 mile radius of New York City and we have an open invitation to become the backup locations of data, information technology, and server computers and jobs that could end up providing national economic stability, if ever another tragic event should occur.

How important is Pennsylvania on a national level? You decide.

There are opportunities here in Northeastern Pennsylvania for great things to occur on a national level, it’s not just about the environment, it’s about a national debt that hasn’t been paid back to Pennsylvania, and the timing is now to finish the reclamation and redevelopment projects that await Northeastern Pennsylvania and let our Anthracite Region, once again, help our Nation become even greater than it already is today.

Robert Hughes is the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program Manager at the Luzerne County Conservation District and liaison for the Eastern Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation (EPCAMR). He can be contacted by sending email to: rhughes@epcamr.org or by calling 570-674-7993.

2/9/2007