Friday, September 26, 2003

By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Gov. Ed Rendell was in the coalfields of southwestern Pennsylvania yesterday to announce a plan to build a $7.1 million water pumping and treatment facility that will prevent millions of gallons of acidic drainage from an abandoned mine from polluting the Monongahela River.

Rendell, speaking at the Shannopin Mine portal last used in 1993, said the project would drain one flooded mine, allowing it to reopen and could eventually provide treated water for cooling at a proposed coal-fired power plant in West Virginia.

"This project will protect Pennsylvania waterways, save taxpayer money and stimulate growth by promoting industrial uses for abandoned mine water," Rendell said. "This is a perfect example of the innovative ways we can address pressing environmental issues while at the same time partnering with local communities to revitalize the regional economy."

The mine pool in the Shannopin Mine, near Bobtown, Greene County, is rising at more than one foot per month. The pumping and treating of the polluted mine pool water will prevent an uncontrolled breakout of the highly acidic water from the mine that could have happened as early as next year and would have polluted the lower two miles of Dunkard Creek and the Monongahela River.

The facility will also allow Dana Mining Co. to reopen the Dooley Run Mine, which it shut down because of flooding from the Shannopin Mine, and expand other mining operations in the area.

"This project not only removes the threat of an uncontrolled pollution discharge from the Shannopin Mine pool, which would cause extensive damage to the local watershed and the Monongahela River, but it also will put 30 miners back to work in the Dooley Run Mine once the water is pumped out," DEP Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty said.

McGinty said the treatment plant also will reverse the flooding of Dana Mining Co.'s active Titus Mine, and double the mine's 15-man workforce.

Shannopin Coal Co. mined the Pittsburgh coal seam in the Shannopin Mine from 1926 until early 1993. Shannopin then went into bankruptcy and abandoned the mine. The state collected $282,000 in forfeited bonds in 1995, and used that money along with $266,000 from its Growing Greener program to demolish some hazardous surface structures and bridges and seal mine portal openings.

DEP is contributing a $1.8 million grant for design and construction of the treatment facility from the state Ten Percent Set Aside Fund, which gets money from the federal Abandoned Mine Reclamation fund.

The Department of Community and Economic Development will provide a $900,000 loan from its Industrial Sites Reuse Program and a $100,000 Opportunities Grant. The Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority will provide a low-interest $4.3 million loan.

AMD Reclamation Inc., a nonprofit organization, will oversee construction.

The Dana Mining Co. will operate the treatment plant, which will pump and treat 3,900 gallons of acid and iron-laden mine water a minute at an annual cost of approximately $1.5 million.

The plant will discharge the treated water into Dunkard Creek through a pipeline about two miles long.

Rendell said the treatment plant could eventually be expanded to provide treated water for a proposed West Virginia power plant that would require 7,000 gallons per minute of water for its cooling towers.

Karl Lasher, a DEP spokesman, said that power plant is still in the planning stages and is seeking an air quality permit from the West Virginia environmental agency.

If the power plant is built, the Shannopin treatment plant would have to be expanded to accept water pumped from other flooded abandoned mines in southwestern Pennsylvania. GenPower LLC, the company developing the power plant, would pay for the treatment plant modifications and the pipelines from other mines.

West Virginia University researchers have identified 1,200 mines in the Monongahela watershed in southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia, all but 10 of them abandoned or shut down. They are either already flooded or rapidly filling with water that can be highly acidic and carry toxic metals.

"If this power plant project becomes reality," Rendell said, "it will prove that it is possible to turn a detriment, namely polluted mine pools, into a valuable resource that can have a positive and profound impact on our economies and our environment."

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