Treating abandoned mine drainage can protect streams cost effectively and benefit vulnerable communities - Communications Earth & Environment
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In Pennsylvania, incomes are lower in communities with streams damaged by abandoned mine drainage, but these streams could be protected cost-effectively, according to an analysis combining demographic, economic, hydrological, and cost data.

Some communities endure environmental hazards from abandoned mines and job loss from the energy transition away from coal. Recent US legislation provides a historic appropriation for abandoned mine hazards like the acidic water that often drains from them.

In addition to making the energy transition more just, our findings indicate that investments to treat abandoned mine drainage in Pennsylvania over thirty years have generally been cost-effective and have likely created more benefits than costs.

A recent study of Clean Water Act grants to municipal wastewater treatment plants highlights a lack of ex-post estimates of the cost of making a river-kilometer fishable.