Abandoned Mine Land program frozen as Appalachia faces severe flooding
The Trump administration has frozen funds used for abandoned mine land cleanup.
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Congress invested around $11 billion into a trust fund to help address the backlog of sites needing reclamation but the federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has stopped releasing the money.
Chelsea Barnes, director of government affairs and strategy for the advocacy group Appalachian Voices, said with ongoing flooding in eastern Kentucky, heavy rainfall can worsen problems on abandoned mine sites, triggering erosion, landslides and “blowout” events, leading to property damage.
“There’s a buildup of water and then it all of a sudden, releases really fast,” Barnes explained. “That can go downstream, down a mountainside and crash into homes, businesses, destroy roads.”
In addition to tackling environmental hazards, research shows cleanup projects also create jobs. One analysis by the Sierra Club found investing in reclamation will create nearly 3,000 jobs and billions in economic growth in a handful of Appalachian states.
While some states have decided to operate business as usual, assuming federal funds will be unlocked soon, Barnes noted for others, the freeze has halted projects.
“Maybe they have enough money on hand to kind of keep things rolling for a little bit,” Barnes acknowledged. “But the longer this goes on, the worse it’s going to get.”
She emphasized water polluted with metals and chemicals from mining can seep into waterways and kill fish and other aquatic life, and contaminate drinking water. She added federal funds are often used for acid mine drainage cleanup.
“A cleanup project for that might look like a water treatment facility to clean up an old acid mine drainage site,” Barnes observed.
There are 12,000 acres of disturbed former mine land in eastern Kentucky which could be reclaimed to reduce environmental and safety hazards, according to a 2024 report by the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center.
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