WVU Project Helping to Control Mon River Pollution
Charleston Gazette
19 February 2011
By The Associated Press
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - Researchers at West Virginia University say
they've developed a voluntary, non-regulatory system that lets coal
companies help limit the amount of total dissolved solids in the
Monongahela River.
Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of WVU's Water Research Institute, has been
working since 2009 on a system to allow 14 coal mine pumping stations
to discharge wastewater without increasing pollution.
Although high levels of TDS have not been labeled a threat to human
health, they can affect the taste and smell and drinking water.
After TDS levels above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
recommendation were recorded in the river in 2008, Ziemkiewicz began a
monitoring program to study the problem. The main stem of the Mon was
sampled at four stations from McKeesport, Pa., to just above the
Morgantown Utility Board water intake in Morgantown.
Ziemkiewicz said that in some tributaries, more than half the salt was
sodium chloride, characteristic of gas wells.
Other creeks were affected by sodium and calcium sulfate, which are
associated with coal mining.
But Ziemkiewicz discovered the problem was timing: When water flow is
low, from July through November, the salt-laden discharge raises TDS
concentrations. If the wastewater is pumped out when river flow is
high, from December through June, the pollution is effectively diluted
"well below levels of concern."
Companies can monitor flow through gauges linked to a U.S. Geological
Survey website and time their discharges accordingly.
Since the program began in January 2010, Ziemkiewicz said, there's been
no rise in total dissolved solids, and peak salt concentrations have
dropped at all four stations.
"This approach controls TDS without costing any miners their jobs or
raising anyone's electricity or sewage rates," he said. "A little
science goes a long way."
However, "There is still a lot of TDS from undocumented sources in the
Mon," he said, "and we need to find out more about them in order to
protect drinking water supplies and other river users."