OFFICE OF SURFACE MINING HOME PAGE

The Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition of Abandoned Mine Reclamation (EPCAMR), a coalition of Eastern Pennsylvania watershed organizations, conservation districts, and other entities, was formed to promote the spirit of cooperation among all parties with an interest in resolving abandoned mine lands problems. Hosting an OSM/VISTA is helping EPCAMR to dramatically expand on its educational work with kids and schools while fostering innovative approaches to community revitalization.

EPCAMR’s first OSM/VISTA, Valerie Taylor, partnered with a local environmental engineering firm to create an interactive Earth Day production focused on the science and effects of acid mine drainage that was attended by one thousand area students and 30 teachers. The success of a trash pick-up she coordinated with residents of a low-income community of Nanticoke, PA left the community pledging to repeat the clean-up on a seasonal basis year after year, dispelling stereotypes and bringing a vision and passion to a once discouraged community. Valerie also brought together 40 volunteers to contribute nearly 800 hours of labor towards the Avondale park project, whose volunteer-built sculptural component commemorates the region’s mining heritage and one of its most perilous mining disasters, the Avondale mine fire. The unveiling of the park project that beautified the mine-scarred area and established a community garden commemorating those who died in the fire drew neighbors together in a way that the community had not experienced in years -- residents commented to Valerie that “everyone used to know each other up here, and now we do again.”

Located deep in coal country, Letcher County, KY bears all the marks of pre-regulatory coal mining – numerous acid mine drainage discharges, former coal camps suffering from a dearth of sewage infrastructure, and a struggling economy. The Head of Three Rivers Project was initiated in partnership with the Eastern Kentucky Environmental Research Institute to bring water quality to the forefront of the county’s agenda and raise expectations for environmental quality among its depressed communities. Evan Smith, the project’s first OSM/VISTA, began by consolidating available water quality data to look for trends, finding a lack of water quality data for 90% of Letcher County. Through collaboration with the Eastern Kentucky Environmental Research Institute on a project called “The Big Dip,” Evan helped volunteers and Institute staff to collect a total of 917 samples, measuring for the chemical indicators of acid mine drainage. His recruitment and training of sampling volunteers through Kentucky Watershed Watch resulted in the collection of an additional 169 fecal samples – ten times the number of samples taken in the previous year, with three times the number of volunteers. He identified new acid mine drainage sites and consolidated enough data to apply for the listing of six streams in the Congressionally-recognized Kentucky Division of Water impaired streams list – an important step towards transforming volunteer-collected monitoring data into a tool for regulatory change. In addition to dramatically building on local water monitoring efforts, Evan also spearheaded several “firsts” for his home region of Eastern Kentucky -- incorporating the area’s first watershed-oriented non-profit, and submitting the first local proposal for a $200,000 EPA Brownfields Assessment grant.

Children holding up T-shirts and learning about the cause and effects of acid mine drainage.

The Six Mile Run Area Watershed Committee began in 1991 by Broad Top Township residents who wanted every household in their community to have proper access to sewage treatment and saw that something needed to be done about the economic and environmental effects of their coal mining legacy. Supported by an OSM/VISTA, the organization now works to improve water quality in its community watershed by finding innovative and cost-effective ways to complete its sewage management project, abate AMD, encourage re-mining and/or reclamation of abandoned mines, and complete stream-side stabilization projects. The Watershed Committee’s first OSM/VISTA, Josh Pittman, spent his year of service working diligently to coordinate volunteer and student monitoring teams to cover an impressive 84 acid mine drainage seeps in the area. Pittman worked closely with area teachers to develop a curriculum that meets Pennsylvania’s Standard of Learning in ecology, while teaching kids about the cause and effects of acid mine drainage, and how they can be a part of its remediation in their watershed. He assisted the Watershed Committee with its successful ‘demonstration project’, a wastewater collection and treatment project designed to use an innovative combination of environmental infrastructure and abandoned mine restoration to improve the health of several local streams. Josh also assisted in securing funding and other resources for several other area remediation projects, including a major treatment system for three mine discharges in Finleyville, PA.

The Upper Guyandotte Watershed Association (UGWA) was formed in 2002 when residents realized that their watershed was in serious trouble: many miles of streams were declared unsafe for swimming, fishing, or use as a drinking water source due to acid mine drainage, poor wastewater treatment, and other issues. Thanks to hard work by its OSM/VISTAs, UGWA obtained its 501(c)3 non-profit status, organized an annual stream clean-up, started a volunteer water monitoring program and raised enough funds to hire their second OSM/VISTA, Kelly-Jo Drey-Houck, as the organization’s first paid staff. Later, OSM/VISTA Ali Reddington, working together with the Rural Appalachian Improvement League, wrote a successful proposal for a $200,000 Brownfields grant from the EPA to underwrite assessment of local abandoned mine sites. She used potlucks and other community events to garner community support for the project, assembled a Stakeholder Advisory Board, and helped to hire a paid Project Coordinator for the funded assessment. Now, for the first time in many years, the community is hopeful about its mine-scarred landscape and its future.