The Eastern PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation , Luzerne Conservation District, and the federal Office of Surface Mining announced a unique collaborative art show called “Anthrascapes” that will be held at Arts YOUniverse in Wilkes-Barre from August 6 through 19.

Arts YOUniverse is located on 156 South Franklin Street.

The pieces included in the gallery showing have incorporated iron oxide pigment recovered from Abandoned Mine Drainage from many abandoned mine discharges, not only located in the Wyoming Valley, but throughout Luzerne County.

The gallery showing will be a blend of art and the environment, using art to express and help highlight the environmental impacts in the region created by past mining practices, while at the same time allowing the artists to showcase their talents on various canvasses and with alternative art forms.

This show will be of interest to local artists, community members, college students interested in art and the environment, the environmentally conscious, local historians, mining buffs, and art enthusiasts.

Devon Rother, EPCAMR Anthracite Art Education Intern, and Robert Hughes, EPCAMR Regional Coordinator for the Luzerne Conservation District’s Abandoned Mine Land Program have been taking local artists from up and down the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley to the locations of where the iron oxide deposits are located and have discussed ways to remediate the sites, improve the water quality, and reuse the orange water deposits as a resource for artists as a pigment medium.

“It’s also another way to get some foot traffic back in the Downtown Area of Wilkes-Barre”, says Robert Hughes, a recent graduate of the 2006 Leadership Wilkes-Barre and area native. “There isn’t a better place for us to present this inaugural showcase of local talented artists and committed active environmentalists than in the City of Wilkes-Barre, right now.”

“When you visit an AMD impacted site, it’s a very stimulating experience of the mind, because not only do you get to take a hike off a few beaten paths of lush greenery and old abandoned railroad grades, you get to take in the spectrum of colorful wetland vegetation, hydrogen sulfide gas (rotten egg smell) venting from the mines, the damp smell of the coal silt and black culm located in these areas after a morning dew, the sounds of the mine water splashing about from the boreholes or air shafts like fountains, and of course, last but not least, the almost neon-colored hues of oranges, reds, and yellows, of the iron oxide deposits that make many of our waterways, polluted.”

Some of the art work displayed will focus on abandoned mine features and their impacts on the land in the Wyoming Valley, particularly in the areas of South Wilkes- Barre, City of Nanticoke, Hanover Township, Newport Township, and Honey Pot. Art work will include images such as abandoned water-filled stripping pits, abandoned air shafts, boreholes, passive treatment systems, and local streams polluted with Abandoned Mine Drainage.

More works of art and additional artists are joining the effort as the Summer continues and future Art Shows are being planned for the AfA Gallery in Downtown Scranton and at the Luzerne Conservation District’s Environmental Education Center and Nature Trail leading into the Fall of 2006 and Spring of 2007.

The Pocono NE Resource Conservation & Development Council is working with the Lackawanna Valley Heritage Center to try and secure some space in their atrium in Mayfield as well.

This endeavor has been supported locally with great enthusiasm by the local art community as a way to recycle what is commonly considered a pollutant to aquatic and insect life to our streams.

However, recently, due to the hard work and creative thinking of the staff from the Luzerne Conservation District’s AML Program, EPCAMR, and OSM, this same pigment is now more commonly being accepted as a valuable resource to the art world as an alternative pigment with value.

Future grants have already been applied for by the Luzerne Conservation District, EPCAMR, and area artists to continue to pursue this exciting opportunity to work with mine drainage in a positive way to restoring our environment.

The Earth Conservancy has also allowed EPCAMR to tour their lands to evaluate their mine drainage sites and are willing and active partners who are looking for ways to remove the years of iron deposits from their AMD treatment wetlands along Dundee Road and this might serve as a possible option.

This iron oxide pigment will be used in a variety of mediums such as watercolor, acrylic, pastel, oils as well as in pottery, wood stains, ceramics, photography, papermaking, ink paintings, plastics, tie-dying t-shirts, chalk, and fabric dying. It’s going to be a must see for the community! Join us and open your eyes to a new world of AMD Resource Recovery Potential in Northeastern PA.

Devon’s internship is partially funded through a federal grant Summer Watershed Internship Program supported by the Office of Surface Mining, EPCAMR, and the Luzerne Conservation District.

For more information, visit the “Anthrascapes” webpage or the EPCAMR website.

8/4/2006