A new book highlights 20 years of research by scientists at Penn State’s Materials Research Institute and the Department of Environmental Protection that proves the benefits of using fly ash produced in Pennsylvania’s coal-fired power plants for controlling acid drainage, and for backfilling abandoned and working coal mines, water-filled mines and rock pits.

“Coal Ash Beneficial Use in Mine Reclamation and Mine Drainage Remediation in Pennsylvania” is a joint project of DEP and Penn State Materials Research Institute.

Dr. Barry E. Scheetz, Dr. William B. White, and Dr. Caroline M. Loop, a former Penn State graduate student now a consultant in Greenville, N.C., are the researchers whose work forms the core of the book, along with contributions by DEP staff and engineers on other beneficial uses of coal ash.

The book provides peer-reviewed research results for the scientific community, government agencies, environmental groups, and the general public to help resolve a pressing public health and environmental problem.

Currently more than 50 percent of Pennsylvania’s electric power is generated in coal-fired power plants. Traditionally, the coal ash was deposited in huge landfills and slurries near the power plants.

But in recent decades coal ash has been put to use to fill and reclaim abandoned mines, a practice that has raised unsubstantiated fears of groundwater contamination. Now further scientific proof of the safety of coal ash remediation is available.

The Penn State researchers and DEP monitors conclude that the use of fly ash in mine remediation, when applied by DEP guidelines, is safe and effective. A committee of the Pennsylvania legislature noted that 3,400 acres of abandoned mine land have already been reclaimed at no cost to taxpayers, and 88 million tons of acid bearing coal refuse and countless culm piles have been removed from the Pennsylvania landscape through the use of coal ash.

In Pennsylvania cities such as Pottsville, where underground mining generations ago has left active cropfalls - collapsing vertical pits that can drop off hundreds of feet - within sight of residential streets, the use of a stabilizing concrete material made of fly ash may be the only affordable way to halt the dangerous collapses.

In Clearfield County, waste piles of acid leaching rock, capped by a hardened layer of fly ash and waste lime, effectively cut off the drainage of contaminated water into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.

These successful results indicate that this new book’s timely information can be widely used to help other Pennsylvania communities, and coal mining regions throughout the U.S., solve two pressing environmental problems.

The book is available in CD format by contacting: Barry Scheetz, 107 Materials Research Laboratory Bldg., University Park, PA 16802 or send email to: se6@psu.edu .

Print copies are available through: State Book Store, 400 North Street, Harrisburg, PA 17120.

Copies of “Coal Ash Beneficial Use in Mine Reclamation and Mine Drainage Remediation in Pennsylvania” are also available online.

10/21/2005