SUSQUEHANNA RIVER CLEANUP PROJECT

Pollution hurts downstream

By Susan Evans

What happens in Carrolltown affects the water of the Chesapeake Bay.

Whether it’s acid drainage from an abandoned coal mine in northern Cambria County or a careless resident who pours old antifreeze down a storm drain, nearby springs and streams can become polluted.

And those small waterways form the headwaters of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. Then the West Branch flows into the Susquehanna itself, and that massive river empties into the Chesapeake Bay.

That’s also why the federal government has issued a mandate for the entire three-state Susquehanna basin to show improved water quality by 2010.

“It all starts here. Even though we don’t have a lot of the West Branch river, we are the headwaters,” said Dee Columbus, director of the Cambria County Conservation and Recreation Authority. “The West Branch headwaters start near Carrolltown and go north, then northeast, through Cherry Tree, Mahaffey, Clearfield and to Lock Haven.

“Small streams such as Rock Run and Chest Creek are part of the whole bigger picture.”

It’s that big picture that prompted the federal government to mandate the cleanup of the Susquehanna network.

The job is made more massive because the pollutants are many and varied.

In the Cambria County area, acid-mine drainage is the primary culprit. To the east, large farming operations do more damage to the environment.

But the mines are closed, and so it is up to government and concerned residents to do what they can.

That’s why the government contracted with Robindale Energy Services Inc., of Armagh, for the huge mine cleanups such as the Barnes-Watkins waste coal pile in Barr Township and the water treatment plant to neutralize old Barnes and Tucker Co. mine runoff.

Jim Panaro, a Robindale executive and a conservationist, said such public-private partnerships are vital to reclamation efforts.

“We removed waste upstream from the Barnes- Watkins pile, taking out several hundred thousand tons before the pile itself was removed,” Panaro said. “Then we removed the waste coal at the pile, and currently we’re doing reclamation work at Rock Run.”

The Barnes-Watkins pile is a good example of how industry can help, Panaro said

In 1995, the state Department of Environmental Protection did not view the project as suitable for a grant at the time, he said.

“We agreed to take the coal to Seward, where it was turned into power,” Panaro said. “It’s a good example of how government can turn to industry and how government can partner with industry.”

A report commissioned by The Sierra Club and released recently questioned the cost-effectiveness of waste coal plants, saying the burning of waste coal generates greenhouses gases and pollutants that create their own costs.

Supporters of coal waste plants say they’ve worked to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which must be weighed against the environmental costs of acid-mine drainage and the methane gas being released by waste coal piles across Pennsylvania.

Removal of the Barnes- Watkins waste coal pile resulted in quick improvement in water quality. Before the effort, 3,584 pounds of acid per day was polluting the West Branch waters. After the project, that level was down to 2,708 pounds per day, according to the West Branch Susquehanna Rescue Newsletter.

“Since the Seward power plant started, we’ve delivered 14 million tons of waste coal,” Panaro said. “I tell the watershed conservation groups to approach us at Robindale and tell us what they are trying to accomplish. Sometimes we can do it at no cost to the group. In other cases there are access issues to a cleanup site, or other costs, but we try to work it out.

“Sometimes we remove the refuse coal and then in exchange we do work. In other cases, we are able to remove the waste coal at no cost.”

‘Do what we can’

Other local projects are undertaken by volunteers — from Boy Scout troops to sportsmen’s clubs and environmentally sensitive individuals.

“One thing we’ve learned is that we cannot live very long without water,” Columbus said.

“That’s why we have to do what we can to correct things now. To do this, we need these kinds of grassroots efforts.”

“The sportsmen’s clubs, for example, are some of our biggest supporters,” said Mark Stockley, a staff member at the Conservation and Recreation Authority.

Some examples of grassroots work in the Susquehanna headwaters:

•The Bakerton Rod and Gun Club effort is a prime example of a public-private partnership.

This project takes a water source from an acid-mine discharge and treats it before releasing it into the club’s fishing pond.

The polluting discharge is captured by a pipeline and carried to an open limestone bed for neutralizing.

Then, the water flows through two more treatment cycles and then into the pond.

The project has multiple benefits — sportsmen can fish, children can learn about the environment and it helps the key goals of improving water quality in the West Branch basin. project involves picking up trash that pollutes the waterways.

In 2005, the nonprofit organization PA Cleanways Inc. teamed up with the state, the Centre County Solid Waste Authority and volunteers to clean up more than 1,000 acres of forest between Philipsburg and the Moshannon State Forest, including an abandoned strip mine that had come to be known locally as the Munson Dump.

They hauled away an estimated 28 tons of trash (“everything from a beer can to a Buick,” one participant said).

PA Cleanways last fall announced that it had removed more than 10,000 tons of waste from Pennsylvania’s landscape since it formed in 1992, through 829 illegal dump cleanups and 525 special collection events.

The organization is working to survey every county in the state for illegal dumps. According to its Web site, www.pacleanways.org, a survey of dumps in Centre County was carried out last fall, and the results are due to be released later this year. •Sometimes work must be done on the stream banks.

The Fox Run stream bank project used grants to help pay to stabilize one section to prevent soil erosion. By using materials to reinforce the bank, seeding with conservation mixes and planting live tree cuttings, erosion has been stopped.

•In Indiana County, the goal with Bear Run Stream is to bring back native brook trout.

The stream had been fouled by acid-mine drainage, killing fish and aquatic life. With a $1.4 million grant, Bear Run is being cleaned up. Conservationists say it once again will be home to a healthy population of native brook trout.

‘The way things were’

Controls on water used for drilling is a project that looks to the future.

Natural gas drilling, spurred by discovery of this region’s Marcellus Shale formations, will be prevented by state regulations from reckless water use.

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission has told 23 exploration companies that they must obtain agency permits before siphoning water from rivers and creeks.

The goal is to head off large, unregulated withdrawals of water, which can reduce flow rates and threaten wildlife habits.

Throughout the process of protecting the headwaters of the West Branch, government officials are trying to be realistic.

“We can’t bring the basin, or the Chesapeake Bay, back to the way things were 200 years ago,” Stockley said. “But everyone can do something.

“At the very least, the individual can stop throwing litter in the streams, or can join or support their local watershed group.”

Robb Piper, director of the Cambria County Conservation District, sees it as an issue broader than bureaucracy.

“How do you convince people that paying their garbage bills instead of dumping trash somewhere is an environmental thing? Many people see only the price tag of these cleanup efforts,” he said. “People ask me what’s it going to cost them, and my answer is what’s it going to cost if we don’t do anything?”