Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not manage any specific areas or pieces of public land. Rather, they are responsible for protecting human health and the environment throughout the United States.

With regard to abandoned mines, the EPA provides incentives for abandoned mine cleanup and disincentives for the creation of new abandoned mines. The agency uses a number of different approaches to facilitate reclamation: voluntary cleanups, emergency clean ups, the Brownfields program, the Clean Water Act, nonpoint source program , and Administrative Orders on Consent.

One of the major sources of funding for reclamation is the Comprehensive Environmental Response Control and Liability Act (CERCLA), better known as Superfund, which provides both incentives for responsible parties to initiate reclamation, as well as funding for orphan sites where a responsible party cannot be found. Through the Superfund program, the EPA places the most urgent or potentially dangerous projects on the National Priority List (NPL) based on a ranking system of health and environmental criteria. There are currently (67) Superfund sites related to mining in the US that vary widely in size and complexity. These projects can cost tens of millions of dollars to clean up, if not more.

In 1997, the EPA issued the National Hardrock Mining Framework. This document guides the agency's National Mining Team (NMT) and Abandoned Mine Lands Team for both active mining and abandoned mine remediation.

EPA – Abandoned Mine Lands
http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/aml

EPA National Mining Framework
http://www.epa.gov/owm/frame.pdf