Abandoned Mine Posts

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has declared May 2007 as Watershed Awareness Month! Of course, for anyone receiving this e-mail, every month is probably Watershed Awareness Month, so this is really for that other part of the population who doesn’t quite share in that passion.Neater still, this year’s theme is “Reclaiming Abandoned Mines to Reclaim Pennsylvania’s Waterways” in honor of the reauthorization and amendments to SMCRA Title IV, the federal legislation that will channel an estimated $1.4 billion to Pennsylvania to help reclaim abandoned coal mines.

We think the General Assembly’s resolution is well worth reading, and you just might want to keep it around for future grant applications. Really.

Read House Resolution 246 (HTML, PDF)

The Office of Surface Mining is soliciting public comment before drafting new rules to regulate the use of Coal Combustion Byproducts to reclaim coal mines. CCBs are ash and sludge captured by pollution control equipment when coal is burned to create electricity.

Numerous studies, including a 2006 report by the National Research Council, have concluded that putting CCBs into coal mines is a viable way to dispose of them and to reclaim both active and abandoned mines, as long as measures are taken to protect the public and the environment. The new regulations, requested by the National Academy of Sciences, will designate these measures as enforceable federal standards.

Read more online at www.osmre.gov/news/031407.pdf

The public may submit comments until May 13, 2007 to:

rules_comments@osmre.gov
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
Administrative Record, Room 252
1951 Constitution Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20240

It’s that time of the year when many of us are in the process of preparing Growing Greener grant applications for the April 13th submission deadline. If that’s you and your project has a construction component, please pay particular attention to the application instructions on page 42 regarding “Prevailing Wage.” This is taking on increasing importance, and we wouldn’t want you to underestimate construction costs for your applications. The page 42 application guidance is repeated here for your convenience:

Prevailing Wage
Please note that, if the grant project includes construction work where the cost of the total project is greater than $25,000, the Act of August 15, 1961 (P.L. 987), as amended, known as the Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage Act (43 P.S. 165-1 et seq.) may apply. You should contact the PA Department of Labor and Industry, Bureau of Labor Law Compliance at 1-800-932-0665 for guidance, or call Alfred R. (Bob) Risaliti, Prevailing Wage Section, at 717-705-7256.

And here’s a link to the PA Department of Labor and Industry website for requesting the appropriate Prevailing Wage Application form that you may need.

Good luck with your proposal!

The Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation has created an interactive, visual tool to help comprehend how federal Title IV funding might be applied toward Pennsylvania’s abandoned mine problems. This new funding, the result of a 2006 revamp of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA), will bring an estimated $1.4 billion over the next 15+ years.

WPCAMR’s Title IV Calculator lets its user easily gain an appreciation of how the Title IV funding model works through playing “what if” by clicking buttons to change estimated values of Pennsylvania’s P1 & P2 inventory, AMD inventory, AMD Set-Aside, DEP overhead, and total Title IV funding.

The Title IV Calculator displays these interactions visually with pie charts and a table of values representing AMD left undone, clean water, restored P1s & P2s, and the remaining P1s & P2s left undone.

Check out the Title IV Calculator at www.wpcamr.org