Coal news and updates

Pennsylvania project to remedy coal refuse slurry ponds beside popular trail

The state plans to eliminate an environmental and safety hazard at the former Banning Mine No. 4 in Rostraver by stabilizing four impoundment ponds that hold sludge, coal refuse slurry and acid mine drainage, including one pond designated as a low hazard dam with near-vertical slopes.

“We're essentially covering it and grading it. They want to eliminate a possible hazard to the trail users,” said John Poister, a state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman, referring to those using the Great Allegheny Passage. The popular recreational trail for walking and biking lies between the Youghiogheny River and a extensive coal refuse pile that towers over the trail.

The state hopes the project will begin in late summer, Poister said. The work is to be completed in less than 2 1⁄2 years, he said.

The state lists the owner of the property as Rodney Erb of Winthrop Corp. in Connellsville. Erb could not be reached for comment.

Projects like this are critical to protect areas from the hazards of impoundment ponds, a legacy of mining and other industries across Western Pennsylvania, said Beverly Braverman, executive director of the Mountain Watershed Association, based in Melcroft, near Indian Creek.

“These projects are necessary to protect the health and safety of the public. It's necessary to protect the integrity of nearby rivers and streams and even nearby water supplies,” she said. “If the mine discharge does leave the impoundments, then they have the potential for wiping out a … habitat if it's near a river.”

Pennsylvania has 5,000 miles of streams that have been degraded by acid mine drainage, Braverman said. There are ongoing projects funded both privately and publicly going on across the state, she said.

The largest of the impoundment ponds at Banning, which is atop a coal refuse pile, is considered a low hazard dam, with a “very dangerous wall” at least 100 feet tall, Poister said. The biggest pond contains sludge from an acid mine drainage treatment plant along the river, while the other two on the refuse pile hold coal refuse slurry, according to the state's description of the project.

A fourth pond holding mine water lies between the trail and the river.

Cleaning up the ponds at Banning, about a mile south of the West Newton trail access parking lot, has been a priority among the state's abandoned mine projects, Poister said. The ponds were never fully remediated when former owner Republic Steel Co. closed Banning Mine No. 4 and sealed it in 1982, he added.

LTV Steel, which acquired Republic Steel in 1984, bored holes into the mine to dispose of the sludge until 1990, the state said.

Water will be diverted from the site. An alkaline-based material is to be added to the ponds to neutralize the acidity of the liquid so that vegetation will grow at the site, Poister said.

“There will be a lot of attention paid to handling the runoff at the site,” and it will be monitored, he said.

The project will not affect the mine drainage treatment plant between the Great Allegheny Passage and the Youghiogheny River, Poister said. Hikers and bicyclists using the trail cannot see the impoundment ponds because of a towering hill of coal refuse.

The federal government's Abandoned Mine Lands reclamation fund is providing the money for the project, Poister said. A tax on each ton of coal mined — on the surface and underground — supplies funding for the abandoned mines program.

source: http://triblive.com