PA Environment Digest

Since 1995 the Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition has installed 12 passive mine drainage treatment systems treating over 500 million gallons of abandoned mine drainage every year removing 190 tons of acidity, 8 tons of aluminum and 150 tons of iron each year.
The removal of iron accumulated during the treatment process is required as part of a regular maintenance program, but presented a problem for project sponsors.

The above photograph taken on July 28 (only in full copy of Digest) provides a very visual illustration of iron solids accumulating at low pH on a pipe in an old pond. As seen in the picture, the feature is about 5 feet in height and the original diameter of the PVC pipe appears to be 12 inches.

The acidic mine drainage, with a typical pH of 2.9 and a flow rate of over 20 gpm, has been untreated for about 17 years and contains, on average, about 230 mg/L of total iron.

For more background, go to the McIntire Site page of the Datashed website which catalogs the results about 173 of the approximately 300 passive treatment systems treating 14.2 billion gallons of abandoned mine drainage every year removing 3.5 million tons of iron, 152,000 pounds of aluminum and 164,000 pounds of acidity

During the installation of a new treatment system on this site, the construction crew from Quality Aggregates Inc. discovered this iron-encrusted pipe. The site, which drains to Blacks Creek, has the “worst” AMD in the Slippery Rock Creek Watershed.

Even though the pipe with the fragile iron-encrustation is to remain for illustration during education and outreach efforts, the Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition, with assistance from project partners, is recovering the iron solids that have accumulated along the sides of this old pond for use in pottery glazes by local artisans.

Visit the Clean Creek Products website for some great products you can buy made with this glaze.

The second photograph taken August 3 shows summer interns Ryan Mahony (left) and Quinten Cameron (right) from Slippery Rock University recovering, by hand, the low-pH iron solids from the banks of the old pond.

This project would not have been possible without the funding that was provided by the Department of Environmental Protection through Section 319 of the Federal Clean Water Act, administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

We very much appreciate the team-work approach on this project and we are glad that we can share this interesting feature. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email us at: sri@streamrestorationinc.org.

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