MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — The West Virginia Mine Drainage Task Force has been tackling the issue of acid mine drainage since 1978. Friday marked the end of its annual conference, where regulators, members of the mining industry, private consultants, and scientists from all over the world gathered to discuss the issue of acid mine drainage. 

Essential to understanding this issue is the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA), a 1977 law that experts call “a line in the sand.” The SMCRA was the first federal environmental regulation for mining. After going into effect, coal companies became responsible for treating their mine drainage. However, nobody has any legal obligation to clean drainage from mines that were in operation before the SMCRA went into effect which are called Abandoned Mine Lands (AML).

“We have roughly 8,000 Miles of streams that are impacted by acid drainage in the Appalachian region,” WVU Professor of Soil Science Jeff Skousen said. He added that the vast majority of it comes from AMLs.

The West Virginia Mine Drainage Task Force has said that water discharged from AMLs is high in iron and acidity and is toxic to aquatic life.

The state treats discharge sites of AMLs with a pool of money generated from taxes on coal companies as codified in the SMCRA. Recently, state governments have received a boost in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated $135 million to revitalizing AMLs.

Many of those who attended the conference referred to the acid mine drainage as the “heritage problem of West Virginia.”

West Virginia Mine Drainage Task Force member Ben Faulkner said that coal helped build West Virginia as we know it from the copper in the walls to the steel in the buildings. “Coal is West Virginia, coal is this part of the world,” he said.

The West Virginia Mine Drainage Task Force Conference will be back next year to continue finding solutions to the “heritage problem of West Virginia.”