The March 15 Rachel Carson Forum on Future of the Environment will look at the reauthorization of the Abandoned Mine Lands Fund and what it means for Pennsylvania.

The forum will be held at noon in the Second Floor Training Room of the Rachel Carson State Office Building in Harrisburg.

On December 9, 2006, the Pennsylvania Abandoned Mine Lands Campaign celebrated a hard-won victory when Congress reauthorized the Abandoned Mine Lands Fund, which will send $1.4 billion to the state to address environmental and safety impacts from past coal mining practices.

Since 1977, when the fund was established, the $20 million it sent annually to the Commonwealth met only a fraction of the need posed by the state’s 4,600 miles of abandoned mine drainage impacted streams, 185,000 acres of toxic land, and over 5,100 features such as dangerous high walls, mine openings, and acid mine drainage pits.

DEP currently is leading a stakeholder process to determine how best to spend Pennsylvania's funding.

The Pennsylvania Abandoned Mine Lands Campaign led the reauthorization effort starting in 2003, convening representatives from 10 eastern coal states, and developing and advancing legislation with citizen volunteers.

In addition to staff from DEP's Office of Mineral Resources Management, John Dawes, chairman of the campaign and administrator of the Western Pennsylvania Watershed Program matching grants program, will discuss how the group was able to work through a broad collaborative process to win the reauthorization effort and steer much-needed funding to the eastern states, where most of the environmental and safety problems remain.

Dawes will also share his current work with leading non-profit and academic partners to advance research and quantification of abandoned mine drainage impacts on streams and their biological resources.

The Rachel Carson Forum on Future of the Environment is a monthly mid-day speakers series that seeks to stimulate discussion on important environmental and sustainable development issues. The Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Policy, the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Office of Conservation Science, and the Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy are organizing this series.

3/9/2007