On the recordFebruary 2, 2017
The discharge from the long-abandoned Boston Gas Mine in Pennsylvania turned a 4-mile stretch of the Monongahela River orange. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said the plume likely contained iron, aluminum, and manganese. A geologist at West Virginia University who studies abandoned mine discharges said the abandoned mine is a large mining complex that has approximately eight outcrop discharges and created this large plume. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an AP story dated January 28, 2017. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From the Associated Press, Jan. 28, 2017] Underground Fires, Toxins in Unfunded Cleanup of Old Mines (By Michael Virtanen) Preston County, W.Va. (AP).--An underground coal mine fire burns beneath a sprawling hillside in West Virginia, the pale, acrid smoke rising from gashes in the scarred, muddy earth only a stone's throw from some houses. The fire, which may have started with arson, lightning or a forest fire, smoldered for several years before bursting into flames last July in rural Preston County. The growing blaze moved the mine to the top of a list of thousands of problem decades-old coal sites in West Virginia awaiting cleanup and vying for limited federal funds.…
