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Summary Of State Grants For Mine Mapping - Kentucky


Beginning in May of 2004 with a $1 million grant from MSHA, the Kentucky Mine Mapping Initiative's goal is to ensure that digitized and geo-referenced maps showing the location and extent of every underground mine in Kentucky are available online to the general public. The state was able to expand the benefit of the MSHA funding through March 2007 by reducing personnel costs. MSHA funds enabled the development of the web site, http://minemaps.ky.gov, for online dissemination of the following information:
    Transmittal Documents: 21,831 (includes vital mine information and accompanies the submitted maps)
    Map Documents: 26,795 (digitized map images)
    Total Scanned Documents: 48,626
    Geo-referenced Maps: 21,573 (geoprocessed to enable use in conjunction with other geospatial datasets)
The Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing has confirmed the presence of over 30,000 abandoned mines in Kentucky and its collection of over 165,000 individual mine maps is the largest in the world. Rising coal prices have translated into increased mining activity, often in areas adjacent to the abandoned mines. These abandoned mines present the dangers of flooding, explosive gas, and roof instability to active mining operations, endangering the safety of the 17,000 coal miners who work in Kentucky's mines. In addition, blow-outs of old mine works located above drainage represent a danger to the general public and the environment. The Kentucky Mine Mapping Information System is serving a vital role in the areas of both miner and public safety. The demand for this type of information is reflected in the fact that they experience an average of 600,000 hits on this web site monthly. The goal of the Kentucky Department for Natural Resources is to eventually digitize the entire collection and continually update the system with new mine mapping information. They believe that the mapping system has been tremendously successful and played a major role in our reduction of mining fatalities in 2007.

The expenditure of MSHA funds necessitated that they seek other funding sources. They have been awarded $35,250 and $96,022 from the OSMRE for FY06 and FY07, respectively, with an emphasis on abandoned mines. The Kentucky Department of Revenue provides a geo-processing specialist to process their annual license maps for active mining. They have also applied for additional funding from OSM for FY08.

Statistics as of 3/31/08 are as follows:
    Transmittal Documents: 24,252 (includes vital mine information and accompanies the submitted maps)
    Map Documents: 28,294
    Total Scanned Documents: 54,495
    Geo-referenced Maps: 25,241





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