2026-04-05

Shaft Report

Tracking America's $11 billion bet on cleaning up 500,000 abandoned mines — one site at a time.

Abandoned Mine Lands remediation tracking — environmental cleanup progress, contamination data, community impact, and the massive federal investment in mine reclamation.

Niche Explored

Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) — tracking remediation progress, environmental impact, community transformation, and the massive $11.3B federal cleanup investment across 500,000+ sites in the US.

Existing Competition

EPA Superfund Maps — official but bureaucratic, hard to navigate, no storytelling. Raw data dumps with no analysis or narrative.
OSMRE Reclamation in Action — showcases award-winning projects but infrequent updates, no data visualization, no systematic tracking.
The Land Desk (Substack) — Jonathan P. Thompson covers Western mining issues occasionally, but it’s a general Western lands newsletter, not focused on AML.
American Inequality (Substack) — Jeremy Ney touches on Superfund/environmental justice tangentially.
TVR Exploring / mine exploration YouTube — focused on adventure/exploration, NOT on cleanup, data, or environmental recovery. Millions of views for mine content shows audience appetite.
No dedicated site that systematically tracks AML remediation progress with data visualization, before/after stories, environmental monitoring data, and community impact metrics.

GAP IDENTIFIED: There is NO beautiful, data-driven, regularly-updated resource that tracks the progress of the $11.3B Bipartisan Infrastructure Law investment in abandoned mine cleanup. The data exists across 5+ federal databases but nobody is synthesizing it into readable, visual content.

Data Sources Found

Primary (Free, API-accessible)

USGS MRDS (Mineral Resources Data System) — https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds — GeoJSON API, 300,000+ mine records worldwide, search by bbox, name, commodity
- API: https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/search-bbox.php (returns GeoJSON)
- ArcGIS FeatureServer: https://services.arcgis.com/v01gqwM5QqNysAAi/ArcGIS/rest/services/Mineral_Resources_Data_System_MRDS_Compact_Version/FeatureServer
USGS USMIN — https://mrdata.usgs.gov/usmin/ — Prospect and mine features from USGS topographic maps, western US
e-AMLIS (OSMRE) — Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System — 24,000+ problem areas, downloadable via EDX (https://edx.netl.doe.gov/dataset/abandoned-mine-land-inventory-system-e-amlis)
- Data dictionary: https://www.osmre.gov/programs/e-amlis-data-dictionary
EPA Envirofacts API — https://epa.gov/enviro/envirofacts-data-service-api — REST API for CERCLIS/Superfund sites, including mine-related cleanup sites
EPA FRS API — https://www.epa.gov/frs/frs-api — Facility Registry System, REST services linking to CERCLIS data
EPA Water Quality Portal — https://www.waterqualitydata.us/ — REST API for water monitoring data from 900+ agencies, can query near mine sites for contamination data
USGS WMS/WFS Services — https://mrdata.usgs.gov/wms.html / https://mrdata.usgs.gov/wfs.html — Geospatial layers for mine locations, geochemistry

Secondary (Scrape/RSS)

OSMRE IIJA Progress — https://osmre.gov/iija — Bipartisan Infrastructure Law AML program updates
EPA Superfund Data & Reports — https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-data-and-reports
State AML programs — PA ($15.2M March 2026), NM ($20M March 2026), etc. — press releases and grant announcements
Data.gov catalog — Multiple AML/Superfund datasets: https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/?q=abandoned+mine

Enrichment

Wikipedia API — Historical context for major mining districts
USGS geochemistry data — Soil/sediment/water chemistry near mine sites
Census data — Demographics of communities near AML sites for environmental justice analysis

SEO Analysis

Keywords with strong demand, weak dedicated content:
- “abandoned mines near me” — high search volume, results are mostly YouTube/adventure, NOT data/cleanup
- “abandoned mine cleanup” — mostly government PDFs, no accessible content
- “mine remediation before and after” — virtually no visual content exists
- “Superfund mine sites” — EPA pages rank but are impenetrable
- “acid mine drainage” — academic papers rank, no accessible explainers
- “abandoned mine environmental impact” — major gap
- “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law mine cleanup” — news articles but no tracker
Long-tail opportunities:
- “[State] abandoned mines” (every state has these queries)
- “mine pollution [river name]” — specific waterways affected
- “abandoned mine safety” — public interest surging (KSL March 2026 article)

Communities

Reddit: r/AbandonedMines, r/MiningHistory, r/urbanexploration, r/geology, r/environment
YouTube: Mine exploration channels (TVR Exploring, Exploring Abandoned Mines) — millions of cumulative views
Ghost town enthusiasts — ghosttowns.com, numerous Facebook groups
Environmental justice groups — Earthjustice, Sierra Club local chapters
Mining history societies — state-level organizations with active memberships
Rockhounding/mineral collecting — crossover audience interested in mine geology

Market Size & Willingness to Pay

Direct audience: Environmental researchers, journalists, community activists, mining history buffs, adventure/exploration enthusiasts, policy wonks
78 million Americans live within 3 miles of a Superfund site (American Inequality, Jan 2026)
$11.3 billion federal investment creates massive news cycle and public interest
States actively investing: PA ($15.2M), NM ($20M), multiple states in 2026
YouTube mine exploration gets millions of views — demonstrates huge casual audience
Ghost town tourism is a real industry — Nevada alone has ~600 ghost towns
Willingness to pay: Environmental journalists and researchers pay for data tools. Community activists donate to accountability projects. Mining history buffs buy books, maps, memberships.

Image/Graphic Feasibility

Excellent for maps — GeoJSON data feeds directly into interactive maps (Leaflet/Mapbox)
Before/after comparisons — satellite imagery comparisons using Sentinel-2/USGS Earth Explorer (free)
Data visualizations — cleanup spending by state, progress timelines, contamination levels
Infographics — mine anatomy diagrams, pollution pathways, remediation methods
AI-generated illustrations — mine site cross-sections, historical mining scenes, ecosystem recovery
Charts — water quality trends, funding allocation, cleanup status distributions