State officials are breaking ground on a water treatment plant they hope will revive a polluted stretch of the Susquehanna River's West Branch.

Today's groundbreaking in northern Cambria County is for an $11 million plant intended to treat up to 10 million gallons a day of acidic mine drainage from an abandoned coal mine.

Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Tom Rathbun says officials believe it will enable fish, insects and other creatures to return to the 35 miles of river above the Curwensville Reservoir.

Pennsylvania is building the facility with federal money. Drainage from Lancashire Mine No. 15 will be routed through limestone pools that encourage iron, aluminum and other metals to settle there.

Roughly 70 miles of the river's upper west branch is considered dead or severely polluted.

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