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SRBC, EPCAMR To Map Mine Pools In Anthracite Coal Fields
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The Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation and the Susquehanna River Basin Commission recently announced a cooperative project to map underground mine pools in the Northern and Southern Anthracite Coal Fields.
The maps will help SRBC and EPCAMR to identify and select mine pools that could be potential sources of water to compensate for consumptive water uses as required by SRBC regulations and toward improving water quality in the Susquehanna basin.
SRBC contracted EPCAMR for $75,000 to apply its expertise in producing innovative, three dimensional geographic information system (GIS) digital maps that can be used to estimate the amount of water being held in underground mine pools.
The Northern Anthracite Coal Field stretches from Forest City, Lackawanna County to Shickshinny, Luzerne County. The Southern Anthracite Coal Field runs from Jim Thorpe, Carbon County in the Lehigh Valley west to the Susquehanna River community of Dauphin, Dauphin County.
“EPCAMR pioneered this underground mapping method and has already applied it for SRBC in the Western-Middle Anthracite Coal Field,” said EPCAMR Executive Director Robert Hughes. Through that initial effort, EPCAMR estimates the Western-Middle Coal Field to hold 60 to 220 billion gallons of untapped, stored water. The Coalition is extremely pleased to continue its partnership with SRBC to now map the network of isolated and interconnected underground mine pools in the Northern and Southern Coal Fields.”
Prior to EPCAMR’s mapping technology, only paper maps were available, making it impossible to assess the potential volumes of water in the underground mine pools.
SRBC’s consumptive water use regulations require project sponsors to mitigate for their use during times of low flow. While several mitigation options are available to project sponsors, the vast majority choose to pay SRBC a fee so the commission can in turn locate and secure mitigation waters.
“The network of underground mine pools in the geographically expansive Anthracite Region in the Susquehanna River Basin is believed to hold large volumes of water,” said SRBC Executive Director Paul Swartz. “If EPCAMR’s mapping work proves this to be the case in the Northern and Southern Coal Fields, these mine pools could provide SRBC a truly viable source for consumptive use mitigation waters.”
Swartz said, “That would be a win-win. SRBC would secure the large volume of mitigation water we need to protect streams during times of low flows, and the region’s water quality would be improved by reducing the overall amount of untreated mine drainage entering tributaries and ultimately the Susquehanna River.”
Under the scope of work for the mapping project, EPCAMR’s tasks will include:
-- Coordinating and compiling readily available background data and information;
-- Creating the data tables/layers needed for the analyses;
-- Performing the 3-D Modeling exercises to determine potential volumes of water in the mine pools;
-- Adding all the data that had been converted from the paper mine pool maps to an electronic digital format; that data will eventually become part of EPCAMR’s Reclaimed Abandoned Mine Land Inventory System GIS database; and
-- Generating a final report for SRBC, including the maps for the Northern and Southern Coal Fields.
Hughes said, “EPCAMR has more than 15 years experience working across the entire Anthracite Region with community groups and our regional Coalition partners that have been addressing abandoned mine drainage discharges from discharge points to treatment. Now, it is time to dig deeper into the underground realm of anthracite mining to determine how much water is flowing beneath our feet.”
In addition to the scientific and technical significance of this mapping project, there is also an important historical component.
Hughes said, “Many of the mining maps are very old and on paper that is deteriorating. By converting them into the digital format, we are not only modernizing the products, we are preserving history. These maps often represent the only source of information that lets us know how, when and where coal was extracted in this region.”
This mine pool mapping effort is part of an overall project being led by SRBC and partners, most notably EPCAMR.
SRBC is in the process of developing an abandoned mine drainage remediation strategy for the anthracite region, similar to what the agency did in 2008 for the West Branch Susquehanna River. The Anthracite Region remediation strategy will focus on the most severe AMD discharges and outfalls for treatment and potential redevelopment opportunities to reuse the mine water.
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5/23/2011 |
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