Acid mine drainage (AMD) from abandoned coal mines is Pennsylvania’s largest single source of pollution. Approximately 4,000 km (2,500 miles) of stream are impaired due to AMD. Restoration of these streams is difficult and expensive. It has been estimated by Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation that the entire abandoned mine land problem would cost roughly $15 billion to correct, about half of which is needed to address water pollution. Currently, about $2 million annually in abandoned-mine-land reclamation funds is directed at addressing the AMD problem from abandoned-mine lands. These funds come from the 35-cents/st federal tax on surface mined coal and 15-cents/st tax on deep-mined coal. At this rate, it would take many centuries to restore all of Pennsylvania’s AMD-impacted watersheds.
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