The Fern Hollow Bridge collapse — on the day President Biden was in town to discuss his infrastructure plan — put roads, bridges, water mains, sewers and other parts of the nation’ foundation back in the national spotlight, where it belongs. For too long, politicians at all levels of government have ignored dire warnings from experts and the public about the nation’s rotting base.

Fixing all that also means providing the means to maintain a safe and healthy environment. And like fixing a collapsed bridge, repairing environmental damage won’t come cheap.

Just ask Pennsylvania state environmental officials. For decades, they worked to alleviate the ongoing damage to land, air and water — so called legacy pollution — caused by abandoned coal mines. Up to now, however, the state’s meagre resources were grossly inadequate to repair the devastation rooted in its industrial past.

But that’s about to change. On Monday, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced record-breaking funding for Pennsylvania’s cleanup efforts, totaling $245 million this year. Over the next 15 years, the state is expected to receive roughly $4 billion out of the $11.3 billion in federal funding earmarked for abandoned mine cleanup nationwide.

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That $4 billion earmark dwarfs the $1.5 billion the federal government has provided for the clean-up since 1980.

Mining damage to the land goes beyond unsightly mounds of coal and byproducts. Some mines release copious amounts of methane. Some mines experience damaging underground fires. Old mines can collapse, taking homes with them. Contaminants can seep into waterways and harm wildlife if not properly handled after a mine closes.

Cleanup projects will aim to remove toxic metals and return fish and wildlife to waterways that have been ailing for decades. They will help treat acid mine drainage to improve water quality, restore mine-damaged water supplies, close dangerous mine shafts and reclaim unstable slopes. Reclamation projects can also covert land to recreational and other economic redevelopment uses, such as manufacturing.

Pennsylvania contains about 5,500 miles of damaged streams from acid mine drainage. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., is working to secure part of the federal funding for building treatment facilities for these polluted waterways. This is a less glamorous but no less necessary use of the windfall.

Additionally, the infrastructure bill will prioritize projects that employ dislocated coal industry workers, people the region’s post-industrial economy abandoned.

Communities that were hollowed out after the mines close won’t suddenly boom again, but the funding will provide good-paying, living-wage jobs and opportunities for a hopeful future.

Officials have anticipated the funding since November when the infrastructure bill passed and are prioritizing projects they can now pay for.

Finally, Pennsylvania will have the resources to launch a credible effort to clean up and repair the environmental devastation left from its industrial past.

Full steam ahead.

First Published: February 10, 2022, 5:00 a.m.