Pennsylvania Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement</SUBAGY> <CFR>30 CFR Part 938</CFR> <DEPDOC>[SATS No. PA-165-FOR; Docket ID: OSM-2016-0013; S1D1S SS08011000 SX064A000 245S180110; S2D2S SS08011000 SX064A000 24XS501520]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Pennsylvania Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), are approving an amendment to the Pennsylvania Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Plan (Pennsylvania Plan or Plan) under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA or the Act). Pennsylvania proposed to modify its Plan by adding Reclamation Plan Amendment No. 3 to allow the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) to administer a State Emergency Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program (Program). The amendment to the Pennsylvania Plan covers coordination of emergency reclamation work between Pennsylvania and OSMRE as well as procedures for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act and other Pennsylvania procedures. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective September 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. Ben Owens, Acting, Chief, Pittsburgh Field Office, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, 3 Parkway Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15220, Telephone: (412) 937-2827, Email: <E T="03">bowens@OSMRE.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background on the Pennsylvania Plan</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Submission of the Amendment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. OSMRE's Findings</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Summary and Disposition of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. OSMRE's Decision</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Procedural Determinations</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background on the Pennsylvania Plan</HD> The Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Reclamation Program was established by title IV of SMCRA (30 U.S.C. 1231-1245) in response to concerns over threats to the health and safety of the public and environmental damage caused by coal mining activities conducted before the enactment of the Act. The program is funded primarily by a reclamation fee collected on each ton of coal that is produced. The money collected is used to finance the reclamation of abandoned coal mines and other authorized activities. Section 405 of the Act allows States and Tribes to assume exclusive responsibility for reclamation activity within the State or on Indian lands if they develop and submit to the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) for approval a program (often referred to as a plan) for the reclamation of abandoned coal mines within their jurisdiction. On July 31, 1982, the Secretary approved the Pennsylvania Plan. You can find background information on the Plan, including the Secretary's findings, the disposition of comments, and the approval of the Plan in the July 30, 1982, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (47 FR 33081). You can find later actions concerning the Pennsylvania Plan and amendments to the Plan at 30 CFR 938.25. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Submission of the Amendment</HD> By letter dated November 22, 2016 (Administrative Record No. PA 898.00), Pennsylvania sent us an amendment to its Plan under SMCRA at its own initiative. Within the proposed amendment, Pennsylvania requested to modify its Plan to allow PADEP to administer an Emergency AML Reclamation Program under title IV of SMCRA (30 U.S.C. 1231-1245). We announced receipt of the proposed amendment in the May 16, 2018, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (83 FR 22607). In the same document, we opened the public comment period and provided an opportunity for a public hearing or meeting on the adequacy of the amendment. We did not receive any public comments and did not hold a public hearing or meeting because none was requested. The public comment period ended on June 11, 2018. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. OSMRE's Findings</HD> We have made the following findings concerning the amendment under SMCRA and the Federal regulations at 30 CFR 884.14 and 884.15. We are approving the amendment as described below. Any revisions that are not specifically discussed below concerning non-substantive wording or editorial changes can be found in the full text of the program amendment available at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> The proposed amendment consists of new Part G, The Pennsylvania Emergency Response Reclamation Program, to be added to the Pennsylvania Plan. Section 410 of SMCRA (30 U.S.C. 1240) authorizes the Secretary to use funds under the AML Reclamation Program to abate or control emergency situations in which adverse effects of past coal mining pose an immediate danger to public health, safety, or general welfare. On September 29, 1982, OSMRE proposed delegating States and Tribes the authority to undertake emergency reclamation projects on behalf of the Secretary. States and Tribes were invited to amend their AML Reclamation Plans and demonstrate that they: (1) have the statutory authority to undertake emergencies; (2) the technical capability to design and supervise the emergency work; (3) the administrative mechanisms to quickly respond to emergencies either directly or through contractors; (4) have the staff qualified to make the findings of fact described in section 410 that emergency projects to be funded meet the definition of “emergency” under 30 CFR 700.5; and (5) that the scope of the work undertaken to reduce the emergency will be established by qualified staff, will not exceed the activities necessary to stabilize the life-threatening situation, and should allow remaining reclamation work to be undertaken later as a lower priority project. <E T="03">See</E> 47 FR 42729 (Sept. 29, 1982). On May 28, 2010, OSMRE notified the States with approved AML Reclamation Plans that due to Federal budgetary constraints, as of Fiscal Year 2011, States would assume the responsibility for funding of the AML emergency programs from their title IV AML grants. <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. Statutory Authority</HD> Part G of the Pennsylvania Plan includes a copy of the letter dated November 1, 1978, that Pennsylvania included in its original Plan submission, wherein the Governor of Pennsylvania designated the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (PADER) as the State agency responsible for the AML Program in Pennsylvania. According to additional information provided in Part G, on July 1, 1995, DER was split into the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and PADEP, the latter of which administers Pennsylvania's Plan. The Pennsylvania Plan also includes: (1) the 1978 legal opinion of the Pennsylvania Attorney General that PADER (now PADEP) is authorized by Pennsylvania law to administer the Plan; and (2) a 2016 memorandum from PADEP's Office of Chief Counsel specifying PADEP's statutory authority to administer an Emergency AML Reclamation Program as part of its Plan. <E T="03">OSMRE Findings:</E> In addition to the general police power granted to PADEP to conduct reclamation work under the Clean Streams Law (35 P.S. 691.1 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and the Administrative Code of 1929 (71 P.S. 510-15), section 16 of the Land and Water Conservation and Reclamation Act (32 P.S. 5116) and the Mine Fire and Subsidence Remedial Project Indemnification Law (52 P.S. 30.201-30.206) provide for the right of entry on any land where an emergency exists, and any other land to have access to the land where the emergency exists, with requirements to attempt to notify appropriate landowners and the option, at the agency's discretion, to recoup costs from the improved value of the land. Based on our review of Pennsylvania's relevant statutory provisions, and the inclusion of the 1978 legal opinion and the 2016 memorandum, we have determined that Pennsylvania has the statutory authority to undertake emergencies in compliance with SMCRA and all other applicable State and Federal laws and regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Technical Capability</HD> On October 1, 2010, OSMRE ceased implementing the Emergency AML Reclamation Program in Pennsylvania and transferred emergency AML reclamation responsibilities to PADEP. Pennsylvania subsequently created an Accelerated Response Program (ARP) in 2010, which was administered by the PADEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation (BAMR), to address AML emergencies that have occurred throughout Pennsylvania's eligible coalfields. As of the end of evaluation year 2022, Pennsylvania has reclaimed a total of 1,574,786 feet of dangerous highwalls, 2,016 acres of dangerous spoil piles and embankments, 47 dangerous impoundments, 153 hazardous water bodies, 1,601 vertical openings, and 771 miles of sediment-clogged streams. In its submission, Pennsylvania states that these are the same types of abandoned mine land features that the State will likely continue to encounter in emergency reclamation projects, and the technical capabilities used for emergency reclamation projects are generally the same as those used for normal, high priority reclamation projects, but with a potentially accelerated project schedule. In addition, Pennsylvania indicated that current staffing levels should be sufficient for the implementation of the emergency program, but PADEP may adjust the personnel structure as needed to accommodate the program in the future. Pennsylvania states that BAMR maintains two field offices: one in eastern Pennsylvania (Anthracite Region) in Wilkes-Barre and one in western Pennsylvania (Bituminous Region) in Ebensburg, both of which have the capability to address emergency AML problems with ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 29k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━