Acid Mine Water Treatment Plant Benefits Local Area The Dominion Post 24 July 2005
The Dominion Post
24 July 2005
By Evelyn Ryan
An acid mine water treatment plant at the old Shannopin mine near Bobtown, Pa., is already proving to be a benefit to the region.
"Had that plant not been built, there would have been acid mine drainage in Dunkard Creek right now from the Shannopin mine," said Joe Donovan, director of WVU's Water Research Institute's Hydrology Research Center.
While WVU's acid mine water and underground mine pool specialists haven't been tracking dayto-day operations at the plant, which was built by AMD Reclamation, he said they can already tell it's had an impact on the level of water accumulating in the caves that are no longer operating coal mines.
The plant is treating about four to five million gallons of acid mine water a day since it went into commercial operation in June 2004, said Chris Colbert, vice president of coal operations for GenPower, a Massachusetts firm that developed the plant.
"Our objectives of treating water in an abandoned mine and preventing it from discharging have been met," he said. "We also have been able to mitigate the impact on neighboring mine operations, so it has been a success."
By removing water from the mine, closed in 1993, coal in the unmined Sewickley seam above the mined area will remain dry and mineable. That's kept the Dana Mining Co. operating as a mining firm.
Dana Mining also runs the treatment plant, which uses a reverse osmosis treatment process to remove various polluting chemicals and metals from the water. The clean water is then pumped into Dunkard Creek, which runs into the Monongahela River.
"We are watching the levels in the Shannopin mine," Donovan said. "The mine was primed to start discharging sometime this year. When they started to pump the water levels turned around immediately."
No matter how effective the water treatment plant at the Shannopin mine is, it won't have that much of an effect on the major underground mine pool that runs roughly from Fairmont to Pittsburgh.
"The Shannopin mine is somewhat divorced from the rest of the mines west of Morgantown that are flooding," Donovan said. It doesn't directly connect with those mines, meaning that the pumping is only emptying the one location.
A $9.5 million loan in November from PENNVest, a Pennsylvania investment body, helped pay for the $7.1 million plant. Another $1.8 million came from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Abandoned Mine Lands funds to pay for design and construction. Operating costs are estimated at $2 million a year.
Colbert said GenPower and Dana Mining Co. established the Pennsylvania nonprofit organization to allow continued mining of the Sewickley seams of coal in Pennsylvania and adjoining West Virginia fields.