“Throughout the commonwealth, we have dangerous abandoned minesites that present a public health hazard and diminish the value of our communities,” Rendell said.

“We are going to use federal and state funds aggressively to locate and reclaim these scars on our landscape and heal the damage inflicted by years of unregulated mining.”

E M Brown will use approximately 53,000 cubic yards of onsite mine spoil to backfill 800 linear feet of dangerous highwall and a pit that impounds stagnant water. The project will restore the land to pre-mining contours.

The contractor also will install 1100 feet of subsurface drain and other erosion-control features, and will relocate a North Coast Energy natural gas line on the property.

The 9.5-acre site will be planted with grasses specially formulated to grow on abandoned mine lands, and 550 tree seedlings will be planted for wildlife habitat.

The site, located at the intersection of Route 879 and German Settlement Road, is easily accessible to the public. The mine was abandoned by Rougeux and Trimpey Coal prior to 1960.

Reclamation work is expected to wrap up by January 2007.

The contract will be paid for by the federal Abandoned Mine Lands fund, which is supported by a fee on every ton of coal mined by the active coal-mining industry.

Pennsylvania has the largest abandoned mine lands problem in the country, with more than 180,000 acres of unmarked shafts, unstable cliffs, water-filled pits and abandoned equipment and buildings left over from when mining was largely unregulated prior to 1977.