OSMRE’s $120m US coal mine grants: design and risk notes for reclamation teams
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
OSMRE has awarded nearly $120 million in FY2026 fee‑based Abandoned Mine Land grants (reduced to just over $113 million after a mandatory 5.7% sequestration) to 24 US coal‑producing states and two tribal programmes to tackle legacy coal sites, including an estimated 500,000 abandoned mines. Wyoming receives $21.8 million, Pennsylvania $18.9 million and West Virginia $13.7 million, with the Navajo Nation and Crow Tribe allocated $411,589 and $28,154 respectively. Projects will target open shafts, unstable highwalls, subsidence and polluted mine water threatening homes, roads and other infrastructure.
Technical Brief
- Grants are authorised under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, embedding federal safety and reclamation requirements.
- Funding derives from fees on coal production, tying hazard mitigation spend directly to historic extraction intensity.
- A mandatory 5.7% sequestration is applied to FY2026 allocations, reducing nominal safety funding envelopes.
- OSMRE reports more than US$6.5 billion in abandoned mine land fees distributed to states and tribes since 1977.
- State and tribal agencies must develop project proposals and manage implementation, allowing locally tailored geotechnical and water-quality interventions.
- Hazards explicitly targeted include open shafts, unstable highwalls, subsidence zones and polluted mine water impacting homes and transport corridors.
- Twenty-four coal-producing states plus two tribal programmes are eligible in FY2026, indicating a wide geographic spread of legacy risk.
- Safety focus extends beyond physical hazards to public health protection and conversion of damaged land to controlled, productive post-mining uses.
Our Take
Coal appears frequently in our mining coverage, but this OSMRE abandoned mine land funding in the United States contrasts with other coal-tagged pieces that focus on active metallurgical coal producers such as Peabody Energy, signalling a maturing split between legacy clean-up and ongoing steelmaking coal supply.
The allocation of more than $6.5 billion in reclamation fees since 1977, including the fiscal year 2026 grants to states like Wyoming and Pennsylvania, suggests that long-term liability management is now a structural cost centre for historic coal regions, which operators and landowners increasingly need to factor into asset transfer and closure strategies.
Involving the Navajo Nation and Crow Tribe as two eligible tribal programmes indicates that Indigenous land and water impacts from historic coal mining remain material; in our database, similar US safety- and projects-tagged items show that tribal participation often shapes access conditions for new energy or infrastructure corridors across these same territories.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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