Pennsylvania
Abandoned mine lands and mine subsidence
Pennsylvania abandoned mine lands and mine subsidence
The Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, part of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), runs Pennsylvania's Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program. It is responsible for resolving mine fires, mine subsidence, dangerous highwalls, open shafts and portals, mining-impacted water supplies and other hazards left by coal mining before 1977, under the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. DEP also offers Mine Subsidence Insurance and publishes a map of mining conditions.
In a Phase I ESA
ASTM E1527-21 does not name mine records among its standard record sources. In Pennsylvania's coal regions they answer two questions about a property: whether an abandoned mine problem has been inventoried on or near it, and whether it sits over old underground workings. That is advice for the search, not something DEP says.
- There is an inventory, and it is not complete. DEP keeps an inventory of land and water affected by past coal mining, with the location, type and extent of each problem, updated from field surveys. DEP also says many additional sites remain undocumented and that future problems, such as mine subsidence, will continue to occur.
- There are two inventories. DEP and the federal Office of Surface Mining keep separate abandoned mine land inventories. DEP says they share much but differ, because they were developed on different criteria for different purposes.
- Problems are typed and ranked. Priority 1 and Priority 2 problems are those that threaten the health and safety of people. DEP lists 17 such problem types, among them subsidence, underground mine fire, vertical opening, portals, dangerous highwall, hazardous or explosive gases, polluted water, and industrial or residential waste. Problems that affect the environment without meeting those criteria are Priority 3.
- The cutoff is 1977. The program covers land and water mined for coal, or affected by it, and abandoned or left inadequately reclaimed before August 3, 1977, where no one has a continuing reclamation responsibility under state or federal law.
- Subsidence can come long after mining. DEP says millions of structures in Pennsylvania are located over old, abandoned underground coal and clay mines, that abandoned mines may collapse decades after mining ends, and that it is difficult to predict if or when one will fail. It says most ground collapses develop where the cover over the coal seam is less than 50 feet.
- Not every sinkhole is a mine. DEP notes that Mine Subsidence Insurance does not apply to sinkholes caused by limestone weathering.
Where to look a site up
- DEP says eMapPA is the easiest public access to its abandoned mine land inventory for a specific area: expand the Mining folder to turn on the layers. Statewide layers can be downloaded from the Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access clearinghouse by searching for AML Inventory.
- The federal inventory is the Office of Surface Mining's e-AMLIS.
- DEP's MSI Risk map checks mining conditions under a site located by address, latitude and longitude, or municipality. DEP says it returns the mining status and whether Mine Subsidence Insurance is recommended.
- DEP's Mine Subsidence Insurance page links a site-specific request form for information about underground mining at a location.
- To report an abandoned mine problem or hazard, DEP gives the bureau's field offices: Wilkes-Barre at 570-826-2371 and Ebensburg (Cambria) at 814-472-1800.
Getting the file
Active mines are a different office. Permitting and inspection of mine sites belongs to DEP's district mining offices, and mining and blasting complaints go to the local district mining office. For DEP's records in general, DEP recommends an Informal File Review before a request under the Right-to-Know Law. Both routes are on the Informal File Review and Right-to-Know requests page.
Sources
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection pages, read October 1, 2026, no modified date shown: