This story is part of our series, Wild Pennsylvania. Check out all of our stories here.
Pennsylvania is getting unprecedented amounts of federal money to clean up old coal mines. Last year, the state got more than $244 million through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and up to a third of it can go toward cleaning up the state’s streams.
Listen to the story:
Mine pollution in a little-known, Pittsburgh-area stream
In a wooded area, Emilie Rzotkiewicz leaned over a small bridge looking down at Chalfant Run, a stream with a milky-white color.
“Essentially aluminum has settled down on the bottom of the stream, and you’re seeing that reflection of the white backup,” she said.
Rzotkiewicz is chief operations officer of the Allegheny Land Trust, which bought the former Churchill Country Club and its golf course in 2021. Now it’s turning the 151 acres into a conservation area that’s open to the public.
Chalfant Run is discolored because of aluminum in the water. Photo: Lauren Myers/ Allegheny Front
Chalfant Run winds through the property. The aluminum isn’t dangerous for people, according to Rzotkiewicz. But it’s not good for macroinvertebrates and other aquatic life.
“I’ve let my kids play in here,” she said. “But they don’t find that much. There’s no crayfish to find. There’s no interesting things to look at because it’s a relatively dead stream.”
The aluminum in the water comes from old coal mines.
The Allegheny Land Trust is working to remove it and revive the stream with a $2.7 million state grant that comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Acid mine drainage stems from the “headwaters”
On another part of the property, Rzotkiewicz pointed to where water is running over a small, low dam, built for the Allegheny Land Trust so they can test the pH and how fast the water is flowing.
Emilie Rzotkiewicz, CEO of the Allegheny Land Trust, shows the small dam, and testing equipment, at the headwaters of Chalfant Run. Photo: Julie Grant/ Allegheny Front
The water looks gray and foamy, and a plastic bag sits in the muck. She’s seen a basketball and other trash here, at what she calls “the headwaters” — the source of the stream.
“Often when you think about headwaters, you think of a beautiful seep that might be up in the mountains. This headwaters is not pristine or really beautiful,” she said.
- Pennsylvania gets $101 million to clean up old mines
- Federal spending bill includes long-term cleanup of streams polluted by abandoned mines
This is where the aluminum-tainted water is coming out of the ground. It’s acid mine drainage. But they don’t know exactly where it’s coming from.
“For decades, western Pennsylvania has been known to cover up those old mine shafts,” she said. “So the water is collecting through a variety of different outflows and then runs into streams or runs into a piping system, and then all comes out wherever it chooses.”
More than 5,500 miles of streams in Pennsylvania are affected by acid mine drainage. People are used to seeing orange-colored streams because when rainwater runs through coal mines, it picks up iron. But aluminum is a problem too.
Now, that federal money will pay for a water treatment system to remove the aluminum at Chalfant Run.
Cleaning the water
Standing near an overgrown gravel parking lot, Rzotkiewicz pointed to where the country club was torn down.
The site where Allegheny Land Trust plans to create its water treatment system Photo: Julie Grant/ Allegheny Front
This is where they will soon be building a system of four limestone rock beds. The polluted water will be moved through a pipe, and then released so it flows over, through, and around the rocks.
“All the water needs to do is rub up against the limestone rock, and it will bring the pH down,” she said. “The limestone rock itself is lowering the pH of the water.”
For visitors, it will just look like landscaping. But it’s a treatment system that removes the aluminum and releases the cleaned water back into the stream. The aluminum will be flushed into a settling pond.
“We’re capturing the aluminum and preventing it from flowing downstream,” Rzotkiewicz said.
Money flowing into Pennsylvania
The $2.7 million grant for Chalfant Run is small potatoes.
.Pennsylvania will get much more through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Over 15 years, the state’s share will amount to $3.6 billion.
“So really, historic investment in a way that’s not ever been done before,” said Sharon Buccino, deputy director at the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
Pennsylvania is getting roughly one-third of the entire federal allocation for mine reclamation from the BIL because of the extensive legacy of coal mining in the state.
Until now, the majority of federal funding for mine land clean-ups was for health and safety, things like mine fires and subsidence. But the BIL also allows the state to prioritize water projects, like at Chalfant Run.
“There is more flexibility, both in terms of the scope of the problems that can be addressed and the timeline over which it can be used,” Buccino said.
As Pennsylvania started receiving this new federal money, the state Bureau of Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation(BAMR), part of the DEP, has been increasing its staff.
“The first thing we did was expand,” said BAMR Director Patrick Webb. The Bureau has added 71 new positions. “And thus far, since being able to spend the BIL money starting January 1st of 2023, we have filled 48 of those 71 positions.”
And the sheer amount of money means the state can afford to take on some big-ticket projects. For example, in January, BAMR awarded $68 million for a mine drainage project in the Susquehanna River Basin.
Smaller projects still can make a big difference in communities
“This is what we know about the nature in our backyards, is that if we give it a little bit of TLC, it will come back,” said Renee Dolney, director of the Chalfant Run / Thompson Run Watershed Association, a volunteer group in Pittsburgh’s eastern suburbs. “We can really recreate biodiversity that was here before all of this heedless development.”
When the Chalfant Run area was a golf course, she couldn’t afford to go there. But now Dolney, and the other 95,000 people who live within three miles of it, have a beautiful greenspace with improved walking trails and cleaner water.
“And we don’t have to drive out to the Laurel Highlands to see what was here at creation,” she said.
“We can have that quality of nature in our backyards, and we deserve it as a community.”
