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The area is littered with them.How do they affect the area's image.What can be done to reclaim these areas...the costs...and who should pay for remediation?
Some of my best memories of visiting my grandparents in Swoyersville were playing at the coal dumps with my brother and cousins. All the Aunts and Uncles, parents and granparents would try to scare us with quicksand stories to keep us away but it didn't work. We'd come home covered in black silt...my grandfather would hose us off and yell before he even let us in the house. The parents all stood around and said nothing. Looking back...I can clearly see that the reason for their silence....the scene just took them back to when they were children; never imagining that they would someday watch 'their' father yelling and hosing off their own children. Good times...good times. And no one ever get lost in the quick sand. Some great fossils there too. We still like to go every now and then. Us big kids...with our kids.....We've come full circle.
Some of my best memories of visiting my grandparents in Swoyersville were playing at the coal dumps with my brother and cousins. All the Aunts and Uncles, parents and granparents would try to scare us with quicksand stories to keep us away but it didn't work. We'd come home covered in black silt...my grandfather would hose us off and yell before he even let us in the house. The parents all stood around and said nothing. Looking back...I can clearly see that the reason for their silence....the scene just took them back to when they were children; never imagining that they would someday watch 'their' father yelling and hosing off their own children. Good times...good times. And no one ever get lost in the quick sand. Some great fossils there too. We still like to go every now and then. Us big kids...with our kids.....We've come full circle.
We used to sleigh ride down them;when the ground was frozen,but no snow cover. I thought I was the only one who chipped shale to find fossils...lotsa ferns as I recall. But don't you think they hurt Scranton's image/tourism???
We used to sleigh ride down them;when the ground was frozen,but no snow cover. I thought I was the only one who chipped shale to find fossils...lotsa ferns as I recall. But don't you think they hurt Scranton's image/tourism???
Yes, lots of ferns, but I found a very rare one that my brother confiscated. It probably is worth some money...it kind of looked like scales but it was a tree bark. I have a favorite still..it has the 2 halfs with the fern on both sides. i'mm gonna have to go again....yeah...we bring all kinds of digging and spliting tools with us...hammers and chisels... I'd be sad to see the one in Swoyersville go....
The area is littered with them.How do they affect the area's image.What can be done to reclaim these areas...the costs...and who should pay for remediation?
There's two ways these are being cleaned up. Those culm banks you see believe it or not are valuable in some cases. Depends on how much coal they contain, the older they are the more likely they are to contain a lot of coal. Two examples was the one in Plains after the eighth street bridge if you were going south or the one in Wilkes Barre right off the Cross Valley.
If the bank tests well someone will eventually take it like they did there, that wasn't a cleanup operation. That was lets make some money operation. They'll set up temporary processing plant like they did there and get what they can out of it. It's not a very good product and isn't suitable for home heating. They ship it down to Schuylkill County where they have co-gen plants that can burn it, then they usually bring the ash back here to fill in old stripping holes which require a massive amount of fill. After they have ran the whole bank they'll cap it with dirt and contour it. Down where these co-gen plants are they built them right near the banks and have conveyor belts running from the banks to the plants.
That really only applies to where any old breakers were located because it's the refuse piles from the breakers that were created from processing coal, it's not from what was taken out of the mines.
Other than that Federal regulations mandate that for any new mining activity that they set aside X amount of dollars for reclamation at the new site. Part of that also goes into a federal fund for cleanup of old abandoned sites which is distributed where it's needed. Pennsylvania tops the list as it has many of these very old sites. The issue with many in this area is that most were created at the start of the previous century up until about WW2. The companies that owned that land and did the mining have long been gone so there is no one to hold responsible.
Funding from this program is supposed to increase quite a bit over the next few years specifically for PA so you might start to see a lot of progress, then again you might not because a lot of it will be going towards projects to clean up stuff that is currently causing issues such as acid mine drainage. Ironic as it is, new mining activity is beneficial to the environment in that regards. A lot of the funding will be coming from activity in other states like Wyoming where this issue of abandoned mines doesn't really exist to the extent it does here.
Pennsylvania will get almost $28 million from an amended federal program next year to reclaim dangerous abandoned mine sites, put out mine fires and stop acid water discharges.
The payout announced Monday by the U.S. Office of Surface Mining is the first installment of more than $1.36 billion the state expects to receive over 18 years to fix historic scars left on 184,000 acres of abandoned mine lands -- more acreage than in any other state. This year, the state received $21.5 million for mine reclamation.
The funding increase won't have much effect on mine reclamation and watershed improvement projects this year but will give a huge boost to them, especially the watershed projects, as funding levels jump higher in future years, said Roderick Fletcher, director of the state Department of Environmental Protection's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation.
Pennsylvania could get $35 million in 2009 and "really pick up" in 2010 and 2011, he said, with grant amounts reaching $60 million. The grant total could reach $90 million by 2018.
Thanx for the information coalman....I am glad something is being done. I just worry about how it affects the areas image. I have visited,with friends who were first time tourists to the area.They already had that miner image in their minds and the culmn dumps reinforce the stereotype.They just take away some of the natural beauty of the area.
Those piles were the direct result of the industrial revolution and helped make this nation what it is today. They were created long before any type of environmental regulation was in place. Pennsylvania is by far the largest producer of coal long term and production has been in decline since 1918. Anthracite which is the type of coal here only makes up about 3 million tons per year, there is very little mining activity for anthracite comparatively to bituminous coal. To put the amount to date into perspective current production is about 65 million tons a year, Wyoming does about 200 million and they still have a long way to go to catch up. The task of cleaning these old sites up is enormous statewide simply because of the quantity of them.
Peak production for Pennsylvania for Bit and anthracite coal combined was in 1918 with 277 million tons mined. Peak for anthracite alone was the previous year at nearly 100 million tons.
First Year of Documented Coal Production
Anthracite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1820 (458 short tons).
Bituminous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1840 (465,000 short tons)
Peak Year of Coal Production
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918 (277,377,000 short tons).
Anthracite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917 (99,612,000 short tons).
Bituminous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918 (178,551,000 short tons).
Quote:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/coal/0576.pdf
Bituminous coal was first mined in Pennsylvania in 1760
near present-day Pittsburgh. By the mid-1800's, it was
widely used as a fuel for domestic use and the salt and
glass industries. The State's bituminous coal industry
grew with the development of the iron and steel industry
and the rising use of coal-fired steam power. Although
used by blacksmiths at Wilkes-Barre in 1769, anthracite
was not widely accepted as a fuel until the early 1800's,
when the problem of keeping it burning was solved by the
use of specially designed grates and stoves.
The development of canals, railroads, and river transportation
opened up markets for both bituminous coal
and anthracite. In 1918, output was a record 277 million
short tons, a level unequalled by any other State.
Those piles were the direct result of the industrial revolution and helped make this nation what it is today. They were created long before any type of environmental regulation was in place. Pennsylvania is by far the largest producer of coal long term and production has been in decline since 1918. Anthracite which is the type of coal here only makes up about 3 million tons per year, there is very little mining activity for anthracite comparatively to bituminous coal. To put the amount to date into perspective current production is about 65 million tons a year, Wyoming does about 200 million and they still have a long way to go to catch up. The task of cleaning these old sites up is enormous statewide simply because of the quantity of them.
Peak production for Pennsylvania for Bit and anthracite coal combined was in 1918 with 277 million tons mined. Peak for anthracite alone was the previous year at nearly 100 million tons.
First Year of Documented Coal Production
Anthracite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1820 (458 short tons).
Bituminous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1840 (465,000 short tons)
Peak Year of Coal Production
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918 (277,377,000 short tons).
Anthracite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1917 (99,612,000 short tons).
Bituminous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918 (178,551,000 short tons).
Unfortunately, they are also the result of corruption and greed. I know my father was a coal miner in Pittston,I was 2 years old when the Knox mine disaster was caused by the aforementioned vices. I have nothing against coal...we do have ways to burn it cleanly and we have some of the largest(if not largest) reserves on the planet. We should be burning coal(cleanly) and pursuing nuclear energy....solar....etc. and "get off foreign oil".
Unfortunately, they are also the result of corruption and greed.
I don't know if I'd blame it on that directly, it's just what they did. The regulation of any industry has evolved since the start of the last century.
Quote:
we have some of the largest(if not largest) reserves on the planet. We should be burning coal(cleanly) and pursuing nuclear energy....solar....etc. and "get off foreign oil".
The U.S. has about 27% of the worlds know reserves, that about equal to China and Russia combined who have the next biggest reserves. Roughly speaking it's enough to meet the energy needs of this country for at least century if not much longer.
FYI the anthracite found here is the cleanest burning coal because it's nearly pure carbon. It's also the cheapest way to heat your house.
I don't know if I'd blame it on that directly, it's just what they did. The regulation of any industry has evolved since the start of the last century.
The U.S. has about 27% of the worlds know reserves, that about equal to China and Russia combined who have the next biggest reserves. Roughly speaking it's enough to meet the energy needs of this country for at least century if not much longer.
FYI the anthracite found here is the cleanest burning coal because it's nearly pure carbon. It's also the cheapest way to heat your house.
Don't need to sell me on Anthracite. Our family burned Anthracite in our kitchen cookstove; which heated the house and delivered hot water;we also had a coal furnance.I'm with you I think it was a great source of heat...relatively clean burning and a steady, high heat output. I just think the area really suffers from the image....google or virtual earth the area......it really is "potmarked". How about if the president's stimulus plan......were broadened to clean up these sites and make some money to boot. Sounds like a win/win situation. p.s. The Pittston Company (just merged or bought out) was the owner of Brinks and other companies...they had the money to pay for their share of the restoration, I do not understand how they got away with it and having the taxpayers foot the bill.
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They'll set up temporary processing plant like they did there and get what they can out of it. It's not a very good product and isn't suitable for home heating. They ship it down to Schuylkill County where they have co-gen plants that can burn it, then they usually bring the ash back here to fill in old stripping holes which require a massive amount of fill. After they have ran the whole bank they'll cap it with dirt and contour it. Down where these co-gen plants are they built them right near the banks and have conveyor belts running from the banks to the plants. 
