Mine Reclamation Projects
In 1977, Congress set up the Abandoned Mine Land Fund to raise the funds needed to clean up mines that were abandoned prior to the 1977 passage of the Surface Mine Act. Active mining companies are required to pay into the fund at the rate of 35 cents per ton of surface-mined coal and 15 cents per ton of underground-mined coal. Congress ordered the money to be used to correct problems created by mining done prior to 1977, especially to fix dangerous or emergency situations, replace water supplies and repair and reclaim abandoned mine sites. Congress estimated in 1977 that repairs could be accomplished in 15 years.

Now, nearly 30 years later, many hundreds of sites remain unreclaimed. Money in the fund has been used for highly questionable projects, and reauthorization of the fund to require continued payment from companies actively mining and making profits is a politically charged battle.

In West Virginia alone, more than $375 million has been spent out of the fund over the last 20 years to re-grade scarred land, stabilize dangerous slides, fix hazardous mine waste and otherwise clean up abandoned mine sites. But, measured by estimated cleanup costs, the federal government estimates that less than one-quarter of the state’s inventoried abandoned mine problems have been reclaimed.

Since the program began, coal operators have paid more than $7 billion into the fund. But as the West Virginia Charleston Gazette outlined in a series of articles last year, more than $1.3 billion of money from the fund has been diverted to low-priority cleanups or other non-essential projects.