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Hegseth orders Pentagon to cut number of senior generals by 20%; House Committee takes up 'drill, baby, drill' budget today; WA voting rights advocates push for democracy vouchers statewide; NYS Jewish students speak to Congress; IN '50501' movement expands summer protests; Trump order targets marine monuments for commercial fishing.

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Trump administration offers $1,000 to undocumented migrants to self deport. Democrats oppose Social Security changes and Trump's pick to lead the agency, and Congress debates unpopular easing of limits on oil and gas drilling on public lands.

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Rural students who face hurdles going to college are getting noticed, Native Alaskans may want to live off the land but obstacles like climate change loom large, and the Cherokee language is being preserved by kids in North Carolina.

Kentucky receives $74 million for abandoned mine land cleanup

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Thursday, June 13, 2024   

Kentucky will receive $74 million to clean up legacy pollution in regions decimated by decades of coal mining. The money is part of $725 million in abandoned mine land funding the Biden Administration is providing to more than two dozen states.

Kentucky has a backlog of sites. Research shows around 408,000 residents live within one mile of land with an abandoned mine.

Eric Dixon, senior researcher for the Ohio River Valley Institute, said in addition to restoring the natural landscape, reducing the odds of landslides and improving drinking water, repurposing old mine land can bolster local economies but first, the sites have to be cleaned up.

"Making them places that everyday people can enjoy without fear of some hazard, like an abandoned mine shaft or an unreclaimed strip mine," Dixon explained.

The latest round of funding was the third in a series of federal investments in abandon mine land reclamation allocated through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Dixon added advocates are pushing for good paying, family-sustaining jobs created by the expansion of
reclamation work.

"The Biden administration has called for these remediation jobs to be good quality union jobs," Dixon pointed out. "We've started to see some of the first union contracts awarded, and states like Kentucky and Ohio. And that's extremely encouraging."

He added state agencies will funnel the money into projects to close dangerous mine shafts, reclaim unstable slopes and improve water quality by treating acid mine drainage.

"Those agencies, they'll identify those projects, they'll design reclamation projects," Dixon outlined. "Then they'll actually bid out that reclamation contract to a construction contractor who will execute the work."

According to the group Appalachian Voices, mountaintop removal mining has destroyed an estimated 1 million acres in Central and Southern Appalachia.

Disclosure: The Ohio River Valley Institute contributes to our fund for reporting on Budget Policy and Priorities, Climate Change/Air Quality, Energy Policy, and Public Lands/Wilderness. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


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