Cash-pinched states and tribes are struggling to protect the public from unsecured pits, shafts, toxic waste piles and other features of abandoned hard rock mines, and Congress needs to step in, according to two groups comprising state and tribal agencies that manage mine reclamation and safety.
The Interstate Mining Compact Commission and the National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs say in a first-of-its-kind report that 750,000 of 1.8 million former mining sites pose an “immediate danger” to the public.
Addressing both public safety and environmental hazards will cost more than $60 billion, the group said in the report released late last year.
Ryan Ellis, the IMCC’s director of legislative and regulatory affairs, said people fall into deep mine shafts or wander into openings and suffocate; underground mines collapse homes, businesses and roads and cause havoc; and runoff from mines pollutes drinking water and creates swathes of land where nothing can grow.
