(WASHINGTON) - Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced that the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining has granted Texas an additional $2,780,107 to help reclaim dangerous abandoned mine lands.

Combined with awards made earlier this year, the new funding brings Texas' total 2003 grant for abandoned mine land (AML) reclamation to $6,199,817.

"The Abandoned Mine Land program has made thousands of Americans living in the coalfields safer, but the job is not finished," said Norton. "Even after 25 years of extraordinary national effort, we still have almost $3 billion worth of high-priority hazards to health and safety waiting to be cleaned up. The President has proposed legislation that will let us get more Americans out of danger and do so more quickly."

The Office of Surface Mining (OSM) collects fees on current coal mining to fund reclamation of coal mine sites abandoned before 1977. When states, like Texas, have certified that all abandoned coal sites have been reclaimed, they are allowed to use the funds to reclaim non-coal sites. However, OSM's authority to collect the fee is scheduled to expire on September 30. The Bush Administration has proposed legislation that would continue the program and accelerate the rate of reclamation for the most dangerous sites.

High resolution photos of AML problems are available online at www.osmre.gov.