By SUSAN EVANS
February 22, 2009 12:29 am
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The Susquehanna River first appeared in print in 1612 on explorer John Smith’s map, under the name “Sasquesahanough."
Since then, the 444-mile waterway has been used by farmers and fishermen, loggers and industrialists.
And in northern Cambria County – home to headwaters of the West Branch tributary – it’s been used, and wantonly abused, by coal mine operators.
It took more than a century for coal mining to pollute the West Branch of the Susquehanna River with toxic acid drainage, and it will take decades to clean up the river basin from its headwaters starting point near Carrolltown and north through Clearfield County.
But the cleanup has begun, mandated by the federal government as part of a three-state agreement to improve the Chesapeake Bay, where the Susquehanna empties.
A major target is northern Cambria County – especially Carrolltown and Northern Cambria boroughs, plus Barr, East Carroll, Susquehanna and West Carroll townships.
That’s the area where notorious coal waste piles have burned for years and where mines have freely drained into Chest and Clearfield creeks, which feed the West Branch.
The fallout from this industrial pollution included a societal attitude that the creeks and rivers were dumpsites, of sorts, say those now working to reverse the pollution.
“Unfortunately there was this attitude that it would be someone else’s problem,” said Robb Piper, manager of the Cambria County Conservation District. “People got lazy and would say ‘Oh, just dump it by the river.‘“
Now, with a mandated cleanup, the bureaucratic structure is visible but complicated. The multistate Susquehanna River Basin Commission is acting as a contractor of sorts, and county agencies along the river are administering cleanup projects.
The lifestyle structure is simple – neither fish, nor people, can live without drinkable water.
“This is a different era,” Piper said.
“Now we’re looking at quantity, and quality of our water.”
Acid mine drainage is not the only source of pollution in the Susquehanna River basins, which span New York and Pennsylvania.
“In the farm areas to the east, sediment and nutrient runoff is the big problem. It affects the river and the Chesapeake Bay,” said Mark Stockley, a staffer at the Cambria County Conservation and Recreation Authority.
But in Cambria County, where the West Branch tributary gets its start, it’s all about coal.
‘Treat the drainage’
Mining began in Pennsylvania in 1785, near Pittsburgh, and spread throughout the region over the next century.
Because Cambria and Clearfield counties have a majority of the coal in the West Branch basin, coal mines sprung up in almost every township.
In the headwaters area of the West Branch, the Barnes and Tucker Coal Co. started its first mine in 1872. Its first power plant was built in 1898, supplying electricity to the mines and to the town of Barnesboro, now known as Northern Cambria Borough.
Twelve more mines were built in the 1900s, and in 1970 the company began discharging acid mine drainage into the West Branch basin.
At the same time, Barnes and Tucker and other coal operators were dumping waste coal at a Barr Township site along the river. Over the decades, the coal burned and burned, polluting the air and water.
Both problems are finding solutions through state grants for projects administered by Cambria County’s Conservation and Recreation Authority.
“The Barnes-Watkins Pile in Barr Township predated the Pennsylvania Mining Act,” said Dee Columbus, director of the authority. “Today a permit would be needed, and that would require a plan to treat the drainage and other byproducts.
“In this case, the waste coal at the pile was so bad that it wasn’t even worth anything,” she said, adding that Robindale Energy Services, based in Armagh, had to charge for services.
“Usually, they just want the coal,” Columbus said. “Then they sell it on the market, and that’s the profit. With this pile, we had to pay to get it emptied.”
But with a state grant of $4.4 million, the site is now cleaned up, and green grass has replaced the dump site.
The project is cited statewide as a major success in the West Branch cleanup, and Columbus said it as an example of an effective public-private partnership.
“The good thing about this is that Robindale didn’t just remove the coal,” Columbus said. “They removed the usable coal, brought back the ash, which is alkaline, and mixed it with the acid products.
“We’ve already seen improvement in the West Branch, just from this single project,” she said.
‘Economic impact’
Another major river cleanup project in Cambria County is a new water treatment plant to replace an old Barnes and Tucker facility at Duman Lake Park.
This was needed because Barnes and Tucker mines since 1970 were discharging acid drainage into the West Branch basin.
Three years later, mine operators were ordered by the state to treat such pollution, and Barnes and Tucker built a facility at Duman.
By 2001, the company went bankrupt, and the state assumed responsibility.
The $4 million effort is expected to restore 25 miles of waterway within the West Branch basin.
Other efforts involve various sportsmen’s clubs and community groups, and grassroots organizations are helping with drainage remediation, river cleanup, and river bank stabilization projects.
“If all of these efforts continue, and if the water treatment is a success, we’ll be able to fish and use our streams again,” Stockley said. “Just think of the econoimic impact that would have here in Cambria County.”
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