Mine Subsidence & Mineral Rights in Fayette County, PA

Fayette County's coal-mining history isn't just a line in a history book. In Washington Township, near Uniontown, it has produced multiple documented home-damaging subsidence incidents in just the past few years -- a concrete, checkable reason to look into a specific parcel's undermining history and mineral-rights status before buying, not a generic warning.

This page covers what's specific to Fayette County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

Washington Township: a documented, recurring subsidence problem

Washington Township, which borders Uniontown, sits over a dense network of historic underground bituminous coal mines, and in recent years that legacy has produced real, reported property damage rather than a purely theoretical risk. Subsidence -- the gradual or sudden sinking of the ground surface as underlying mine voids collapse or shift -- damaged a home on Smithfield Street in June 2020. A separate incident followed in the area of Grace Street and Perry Avenue in September 2022. Pennsylvania DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation subsequently investigated nine homes on Mutich and Hollywood Streets and found six of them with significant structural damage in their basements and slight-to-moderate damage on their main floors, identifying the long-abandoned Tremont Mine as a possible source.

A DEP mine map reviewed in connection with these incidents reportedly shows that nearly the entire township sits over historically undermined ground -- meaning the risk isn't confined to a single street or a single incident, but reflects the broader density of old, mapped (and in some cases poorly mapped) mine workings under a large share of the township's surface. Crews have reportedly considered an emergency stabilization approach involving drilling into the old mine voids and filling them with concrete grout to arrest further movement beneath affected homes.

Abandoned mines vs. active longwall mining: a different mechanism, different remedy

It's worth being precise about what kind of mining subsidence this is, because Pennsylvania actually has two meaningfully different subsidence patterns and they carry different remedies. Active longwall mining -- a modern technique that intentionally allows planned surface subsidence as coal is extracted -- is documented by DEP as occurring only in Washington and Greene counties, and it triggers Act 54, a specific state law requiring the currently operating coal company to repair or pay for resulting structural and water-supply damage. Fayette County's Washington Township problem is different: it stems from old, abandoned deep mines with no current operator, meaning there is no Act 54-style company on the hook, and the relevant government point of contact for both investigating existing damage and understanding a parcel's specific undermining history is instead DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation.

That distinction matters directly for a land buyer: if you're evaluating a parcel in an actively longwall-mined county, Act 54 gives you a specific legal framework and a specific company to hold accountable for new damage. If you're evaluating a parcel over old, abandoned mine workings in a place like Washington Township, there is generally no current operator to pursue, and the practical tools are instead DEP's abandoned-mine reclamation programs, mine-subsidence insurance (a state-backed program specifically because standard homeowners' insurance typically excludes mine subsidence), and your own pre-purchase mine-map research.

What to actually check before buying land here

Before buying in or near Washington Township -- or really any historically mined part of Fayette County -- ask DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation directly whether mine maps show the specific parcel as undermined, and by which historic mine. Separately, check with the Fayette County Recorder of Deeds for the parcel's chain of title, since coal-country deeds here commonly severed the surface estate from the mineral (coal, oil, and gas) estate and, in mined areas specifically, a separate support estate covering the surface's right to physical support from below -- any of which may be owned by a party with no connection to the current surface owner.

Finally, ask specifically about mine-subsidence insurance, a Commonwealth-backed program that exists precisely because ordinary homeowners' insurance policies generally exclude subsidence damage; given the documented, recurring pattern in Washington Township, confirming whether that coverage is available and reasonably priced for a specific parcel is a genuinely practical step here, not boilerplate advice.

Mine Subsidence and Mineral Rights in Fayette County, Pennsylvania

Washington Township: a documented, recurring subsidence problem

Abandoned mines vs. active longwall mining: a different mechanism, different remedy

What to actually check before buying land here

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