PHOENIX (AP) -- Arizona's anemic program to seal thousands of dangerous abandoned mines would get a monetary shot in the arm under a budget request submitted in the wake of an accident that killed one girl riding an all-terrain vehicle and injured her sister.

State Mine Inspector Joe Hart is requesting at least $1.1 million in the 2008-2009 fiscal year for the Abandoned Mine Safety Fund run by his office.

The fund received no state appropriations during either of the last two fiscal years but lawmakers provided $50,000 in the current budget at the urging of Hart, a former legislator who took office in January after being elected last November.

Hart's preliminary 2008-2009 budget request, obtained by The Associated Press under a public records request, states that there are an estimated 100,000 mine sites in Arizona. A preliminary inventory has counted more than 9,900 abandoned mines, including 3,280 regarded as safety problems, the document stated.

Besides the requested 2008-2009 appropriation, Hart said during an interview that he wants lawmakers to give appropriations of at least $1 million in each of the next nine fiscal years.

Hart, who as a legislator represented the site near Chloride where the Sept. 1 ATV accident occurred, had made calling for action on abandoned mines a key plank in his campaign for mine inspector.

The state last year fenced off 108 mining sites and sealed four, including two west of Phoenix that were "a significant hazard to the public's health and safety," the preliminary budget request stated.

Now is the time for the state to do more, Hart said during the interview. "This one of the two girls falling in one has just brought it to the forefront."

Rikki Howard, 13, was killed when the ATV plunged into a shaft next to a dirt road. Her sister, Casie Hicks, 10, was seriously injured.

Hart said he didn't know whether the state money he's asking the Legislature will appropriate will be adequate but he said he is also trying to work out arrangements for federal land-management agencies to pay the state to handle mine closings on their property.

"I think it's going to take about $1 million a year to put a dent in this," he said of the state funding.

Hart said he wants to hire two additional employees to inventory abandoned mines and coordinate closure projects but that he plans to use private contractors to do the actual closing work.

The initial focus would be on sealing vertical shafts because they pose the most serious safety hazard, he said. "If you walk into a horizontal shaft, chances are you walk out."

Though private landowners are responsible for eliminating hazardous mine conditions on their property, state law requires the mine inspector to step in when owners can't be located.

"Failure to timely and properly act to close mines posing serious hazards may cause liability problems for the state," Hart's budget request states.

Hart said he's willing to have lawmakers attach a "sunset" on any multiyear funding he receives and to set performance measures to gauge whether his office should keep receiving the increased funding.

"Make me work for it. Give me the chance," he said.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Bob Burns, R-Peoria, said the girls' accident means Hart likely will be successful in getting lawmakers to provide more dollars despite the state's fiscal situation is worsening because of lower-than-expected revenue collections.

"Unfortunately until something ... happens, these things don't take on the priority they deserve," Burns said of the mine program. "I suspect it will have a much higher visibility than it has in the past."

Gov. Janet Napolitano said earlier Tuesday that the program is a responsibility of the mine inspector, an elected official.

"It seems to me that's something he's got to put in the budget and it will be something I'd look at very seriously," she said.

However, Napolitano also said the state needs to hold owners of private property responsible for dangerous sites.

"We start there," Napolitano said when asked generally about the state's role in the abandoned mine situation.

Hart said later he'd rather spend the state's initial funding on closing mines rather than legal work to track down long-gone owners.

Because many mining sites were abandoned early in the 20th century, "we can't find who the owner is," Hart said. "It'd probably be better to just fill them up and find out who's going to pay for it later.”