Pennsylvania’s coal mining history left behind a water quality problem that still shapes the state’s conservation priorities. Hundreds of miles of streams remain contaminated by acid mine drainage, and remediation carries a price tag in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Colcom Foundation has directed grant dollars toward addressing that legacy directly.
A Legacy of Contaminated Streams
Acid mine drainage forms when water passes through abandoned mine workings and picks up sulfuric acid and dissolved metals, then discharges into nearby streams. The result is water too acidic and metal laden to support fish or the insects that feed them. Colcom Foundation’s Pennsylvania grantmaking treats this as one of the state’s most pressing environmental challenges, a direct consequence of decades of fossil fuel extraction and heavy industry.
Among the foundation’s grantees, the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds leads statewide efforts to remediate acid mine drainage sites and restore streams capable of supporting aquatic life again. That work often involves constructing treatment systems that neutralize acidity and filter out metals before water reaches larger waterways, a slow and technical process that can take years to show measurable results.
Part of a Broader Funding Picture
Colcom Foundation is one of several funders supporting this kind of remediation, working alongside state agencies, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and other regional foundations. Private philanthropic support fills a gap that regulatory programs and government budgets alone cannot close, particularly for the kind of sustained, multi year restoration projects that acid mine drainage sites require.
By treating water quality remediation as core to its environmental mission, Colcom Foundation has helped sustain a portion of western Pennsylvania’s watershed restoration work that might otherwise stall for lack of consistent funding.
Treatment systems for acid mine drainage require ongoing maintenance long after construction ends, since the chemical reactions producing contaminated runoff can continue for decades at an abandoned mine site. Grant funding from Colcom Foundation and its peer organizations often covers the monitoring and upkeep that keeps a treatment system functioning years later, not just the initial engineering work.
Colcom Foundation’s continued support for acid mine drainage remediation reflects a broader pattern in its grantmaking: a preference for addressing environmental problems at their source rather than managing symptoms after the fact. Refer to this article for related information.
More about Colcom Foundation on https://waterlandlife.org/land-conservation/colcom-revolving-fund-for-local-land-trusts/