Home to one-third of the nation’s abandoned mines, Pennsylvania is getting nearly $245 million in federal money to launch a remediation effort.

The estimated 5,000 abandoned mines in the state, including nearly 300 in Butler County, pose health and safety hazards, state and federal officials said.

The state is getting $244.9 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 that President Joe Biden signed into law to clean up abandoned mine lands.

Gov. Tom Wolf and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., announced the funding Monday. Casey said the state will be eligible to receive more than $3 billion over the next 15 years to clean up abandoned mine land through the infrastructure act.

The nearly 300 inventoried problem area mine sites in the county contain about 1,550 individual known problems such as highwalls, shafts, mine openings and mine discharges, said Thomas Decker, state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman.

The statuses of those sites varies from abandoned to reclaimed, Decker said.

The exact number of abandoned mine sites changes in the abandoned mine lands inventory as the department gets new information, and the exact number may never be known, he said.

Casey said 1.4 million Pennsylvanians live within a mile of an abandoned mine.

“Pennsylvania’s coal industry built and powered our nation for decades. Now these communities bear the brunt of abandoned mine land pollution, including ravaged landscapes, property damage and poor health,” Casey said.

As one of the largest coal-producing states in the country, Pennsylvania is now disproportionately affected by abandoned mine lands and the environmental impacts, he said.

“For too long, we’ve neglected the pressing needs of communities blighted by abandoned and polluted mines. This funding is just the start of what the infrastructure law will bring to Pennsylvania communities to address vital abandoned mine land and water reclamation projects, clean legacy pollution, create jobs and improve Pennsylvanians’ quality of life,” Casey said.

Wolf said the state’s abandoned mines memorialize a period of great economic and industrial growth in the state and country, but are now scars on the landscape. In addition to being at risk for fires, these abandoned mines have dangerous highwalls and open shafts and are sources for both water and air pollution, he said.

“We’ve long needed a solution to accelerate work to address the environmental and public health concerns of our legacy energy development,” Wolf said. “This bipartisan investment will address the dangers of abandoned mines while simultaneously supporting new, good-paying jobs, economic recovery and community revitalization.”

Wolf said he will work with the U.S. Department of ​the Interior to put the grant money to work to enhance the state’s abandoned mine reclamation program and return abandoned mine land to productive use for things such as recreation, farming or clean energy production.