With the opening of a valve, a new page in history was written in the book of acid mine drainage treatment in Pennsylvania.  DEP Secretary Michael Krancer opened the valve as part of the July 18 site dedication, marking the beginning of a unique renewable energy generator in Tioga County.

The valve opening allowed treated acid mine water from the Antrim Treatment Plant to power a turbine and begin generating electricity to run the facility.

Also on hand to participate in the celebration were Mike Smith, District Mining Manager, and Mario Carrello, Watershed Manager, both from DEP’s Moshannon Office and Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition participants and BioMost, Inc. staff: Tim Danehy, Cliff Denholm, Shaun Busler, Sylvia Danehy, Bryan Page, Buck Neely, Ryan Mahoney, Kelsea Palmer and Margaret Dunn.

“This micro-hydro plant is the firs of its kind in Pennsylvania to use acid mine water to generate renewable energy while creating no air or water pollution,” Secretary Krancer said.  “It helps to solve an existing water pollution problem by using a treated waste product from past mining activities to generate energy.”

The Antrim Micro-Hydropower Project will also sell a portion of the electricity back to the utility company without causing pollution.

Since the 1990’s AMD has been treated with lime at the Antrim Treatment Plant and by 2002 five miles of Pine Creek had been restored to a viable fishery.  Now the plant does even more and upon approval of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a portion of electricity generated will be sold to electric companies for revenue.

Bill Beacom, the president of the Babb Creek Watershed Association said, “It is our hope that this project can be used throughout Pennsylvania and the United States so that they can produce revenue and get some more of these discharges cleaned up, and we’ll have many more miles of polluted streams cleaned up.”

The BCWA identified electric power production from the treatment plant discharge as a way to reduce the plant’s operating costs and generate an additional revenue stream for the Antrim Treatment Trust, which was established by the Antrim Mining Company before going out of business.

In 2008, BCWA received a DEP Energy Harvest Grant to install two hydroelectric turbines on the Antrim Treatment Plan effluent.

In May of this year, BioMost, Inc. completed construction, which includes a small pond that collects treated water from the Plant; 1,000 feet of pipeline; and a power house with two, 20 kilowatt turbines.

One turbine is currently operating at the power house in order to supply electricity to operate the conventional treatment plant.  When licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, however, both turbines will be used in order to supply power to the grid, eliminating an estimated $12,000 in annual electrical costs needed to operate the treatment plant and generating about $10,000 per year in additional revenue from the Antrim Treatment Trust.

Woodlands Bank, which administers the Trust and Waste Management, Inc. were also involved in the project, teaming with the BCWA, DEP and BioMost, Inc. to form a partnership which has allowed this one-of-a-kind project to achieve success.

(Reprinted from the August issue of The Catalyst, Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition)

9/3/2012