PA Environment Digest Blog: New Report: Role Of Community-Based Watershed Organizations In Abandoned Mine Reclamation, Mine Drainage Treatment In Pennsylvania

The PA Organization for Watersheds and Rivers and its partners just released a final report on the historic role community-based watershed organizations have played in abandoned mine reclamation and mine drainage treatment in Pennsylvania.

The report highlights the challenges they face, and the conditions and support necessary to ensure meaningful, practical, sustained watershed organization engagement in the acceleration of AMD remediation in Pennsylvania and its long-term benefits for water quality.

The report identifies barriers to involvement and makes recommendations on how to improve their effectiveness.

Partners in this report include the nonprofit Stream Restoration Incorporated, Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, and Western Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation Project.

Overview

Community-based Watershed Organizations (CWOs) have been actively working for the past several decades to address these abandoned mine land issues and restore their local watersheds.

They have weathered various changes to the funding, political, regulatory, and public interest landscapes and remain dedicated to being part of the solution.

With the development of the US EPA’s 319 Nonpoint Source Program and other

fundings sources in the early 1990’s, along with the development of low maintenance passive treatment technology at approximately the same time, watershed groups had access to both the funding and the ability to treat sources of AMD that were impacting their local streams.

[Accepting The Challenge, a 1991 book by Will Taylor, park manager at the Jennings Environmental Education Center and an active participant in the Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition outlines the challenges and opportunities faced by communities during those years.]

In 1999, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge announced the Growing Greener Initiative, which was enacted with bipartisan support and passed unanimously in both the PA House and Senate.

Growing Greener established Pennsylvania’s Environmental Stewardship fund and invested an initial $650 million in environmental projects including AMD remediation.

The Growing Greener program, which has evolved in the last 25 years, provided a massive boom to existing watershed groups and the creation of many new watershed organizations who were excited about the possibility of restoring their watersheds

The program not only paid for AMD treatment system construction and subsidized staff to facilitate projects, it also funded the formation of additional non-profit entities that could apply for grants to do this work, which in turn spurred a push for capacity building, provision of supporting services, and development of partnerships bolstering the watershed organization movement.

A whole network was born.

Unprecedented cooperation between nonprofits, academics, industry, and regulatory agencies at all levels of government became the structure around CWO AMR work in the early 2000’s.

Growing Greener grants required support letters as well as a sizable match in cash and/or in-kind goods and services. A number of foundations immediately filled the gaps.

College professors and engineers began exploring and developing passive treatment, which is particularly appealing and approachable for nonprofit volunteer organizations. Industry often owned the land and was sometimes willing to donate it for reclamation.

A review of available data regarding CWO involvement in AMR projects makes clear that such partnerships have been incredibly successful over the decades, with over 300 passive treatment systems being constructed across 34 out of PA’s 67 counties since 1970.

Growing Greener provided the greatest amount of funding towards passive treatment projects at an estimated $45 million.

Due to the new [federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Act] funding available for AMR work, Growing Greener’s 2024 Program Guidance document states that SMCRA projects under Growing Greener are limited to “ABS Legacy Sites” in PA Code § 86.1, meaning that mine sites must have been permitted and bonded between July 31, 1982 to August 4, 2001 where bonds have been forfeited in order to qualify.

Now, that means that Growing Greener SMCRA will likely not fund projects on pre-act (1977 SMCRA) abandoned sites.

Growing Greener contributed to approximately 38% of the documented funding towards CWO-led AMR projects in Pennsylvania.

This is a considerable chunk of the funding that went towards this work, so the adjustment from Growing Greener to BIL/IIJA funds will likely bring about new challenges for CWOs when participating in AMR projects.

Recommendations

At the core of almost all of the recommendations is addressing the challenge of inadequate “organizational capacity” to develop, implement, and maintain projects and manage the significant financial resources necessary to do so in perpetuity.

Under this large ‘umbrella’ are more specific recommendations related to:

-- Training volunteers, staff, and other leaders in skills necessary for funding acquisition and management,

-- Easing the burdens for watershed organizations associated with securing and managing grant funds,

-- Instituting greater efficiencies and transparency within state and federal agencies and reducing, to the extent practical, bureaucratic “barriers to entry” for entities to serve in the role as subrecipients of AML/AMD funding,

-- Increasing pathways of communication among all the key partners involved in AML/AMD projects,

-- Ensuring that legal and liability assistance efforts are available to entitles taking on the complex work of AML/AMD project coordination, implementation, and monitoring,

-- Supporting efforts to increase staff at all levels and within all agencies, organizations, and companies doing AML/AMD related work,

-- Advocating for smart state and federal policies that serve to support and not hinder these critical efforts, and finally,

-- Continued and expanded funding for critical training, operation and maintenance, staff positions and operational costs within sub-recipient entities, tracking and monitoring databases, maps and other tools, and more.

The PA Organization for Watersheds and Rivers, Stream Restoration Incorporated, Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, and Western Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation Project have developed a plan to implement priority recommendations made by the report.

Click Here for a copy of the report.

How Clean Is Your Stream?

The draft 2024 report has an interactive report viewer that allows you to zoom in to your own address to see if the streams near you are impaired and why.

Click Here to check out your streams. Click Here for a tutorial on using the viewer.

Watershed Grants Available

April 25-- DEP Local Abandoned Mine Reclamation Grants

May 13-- NFWF Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund

May 13-- NFWF Chesapeake Bay Small Watershed Grants

May 13-- NFWF Chesapeake Watershed Investments For Landscape Defense (WILD)

May 30-- PRPS People, Parks & Community Foundation Grants

May 31-- Commonwealth Financing Authority Act 13 Watershed, Flood, Sewage, Recreation Grants

June 2-- Coldwater Heritage Partnership Conservation Grants

June 20-- Growing Greener Plus, Bond Forfeiture, Stormwater Planning Grants

June 20-- EPA Section 319 Grants

October 24-- DEP Local Abandoned Mine Reclamation Grants