The state just put $2.8 million behind the kind of work watershed groups in our basin do every day. On October 2, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced a new round of federal Section 319 grants, and abandoned mine drainage treatment took a healthy share of it.
DEP awarded $2,820,389 in federal Section 319 Nonpoint Source Management grants to eight projects across Pennsylvania, announced October 2, 2026. Western Pennsylvania money includes $227,500 to the Western PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, and more than $1.1 million is headed to mine drainage treatment work in the Clearfield Creek watershed. This round is closed, but the next cycle is the one to start planning for now.
Where the money landed
Section 319 is the federal Clean Water Act program that funds work on nonpoint source pollution, the runoff and drainage that comes from everywhere and nowhere in particular: old mine complexes, farm fields, eroding streambanks. DEP passes the money through to the groups and agencies actually doing the work, and this round covers stream and floodplain restoration, riparian buffers, and acid mine drainage treatment.
The award of most direct interest to our network is $227,500 to the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation for its Conservation District Abandoned Mine Reclamation Program-West. That program puts AMD expertise inside county conservation districts across the western half of the state, which is often the first door a small watershed group knocks on when a discharge problem gets too big to handle alone.
The Clearfield Creek watershed, in the headwaters of the West Branch Susquehanna but worked by the same AMD community many of our partners belong to, did especially well. The Clearfield Creek Watershed Association received $347,832 for a passive treatment system on Little Laurel Run, and the Clearfield County Conservation District received $790,612 for design and construction of AMD treatment on Morgan Run.
What this signals for the next cycle
An award announcement is not an open grant round, so there is nothing to apply for today. What it does offer is a current, concrete picture of what DEP’s 319 program actually funds: volunteer watershed associations building passive treatment systems, conservation districts carrying design and construction, and coalition programs that spread technical help around. Groups with a discharge they have been watching, or a restoration design sitting in a drawer, should treat this list as a study guide and get on their conservation district’s radar before the next application window opens.
Why it matters for the rest of us
Federal water funding has had an uncertain year, and the quiet good news here is that the Section 319 pipeline into Pennsylvania is still flowing on schedule. Every one of these eight projects started the same way most of our member groups’ projects do, with a few volunteers and a stretch of water that deserved better. The money follows the groups that are ready for it.
Based on the Pennsylvania DEP announcement of October 2, 2026 (pa.gov) and the PA Environment Digest summary of October 2, 2026 (paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com). Current as of October 5, 2026.
