****FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE****
EPCAMR organizes tour for the Office of Surface Mining’s Volunteers In Service To America (OSM/VISTAs) to the last historical mining industry dinosaur in the Northern Anthracite Coal Fields, the Huber Breaker
Ashley, PA – November 15, 2010
The Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation (EPCAMR), in conjunction with the Huber Breaker Preservation Society (HBPS), offered a full informational outside tour and inside look of the last standing coal breaker in the Northern Anthracite Coal Region for OSM/VISTAs within the Anthracite Heritage Alliance. The tour was led by current HBPS President, Bill Best, who imbued his extensive knowledge of the history and functions of the breaker and all of its parts of both the remaining structures and those long since demolished or removed. Mr. Best took a party of eight people, including five OSM/VISTAs and two supervisors, through the major remaining buildings, climbing directly up the conveyor belt that supplied coal to the top of the 10-story coal breaker.
Participating in the tour was Chris Deemer, with Eckley Miner’s Village, who initiated the interest in having a full educational experience at the site. Megan Blackmon of Schuylkill County Conservation District, Michael Stanton of Schuylkill Headwaters Association, Michael Bloom of Hazleton Civic Partnership/Delaware and Lehigh Rails to Trails, Wren Dugan of EPCAMR and Community Watershed Development Coordinator through the OSM/VISTA Anthracite Heritage Alliance, and Sarah Koontz of Susquehanna Greenway Partnership rounded out the party. Robert Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director, shared his thoughts on the tour by saying, “EPCAMR hopes that through this regional collaboration tour we can expand our outreach and publicity efforts to gain additional support for saving this fossil of a building. Once it’s gone, there will never be another structure as ominous and telling as this one that could explain to our next generation of children the reasons for the rise and the fall of the Anthracite mining industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Coal mining history of the Anthracite Region will become a thing of the past.”
The OSM/VISTAs work on a great variety of projects, including water monitoring, biological sampling, historic preservation and clean up efforts, community mobilization and revitalization, event organization, and fundraising/grant writing. The goal of every OSM/VISTA is to lower poverty by improving the environment on a grass roots level within the community. In addition, EPCAMR’s Robert Hughes and Program Manager, Michael Hewitt, attended to provide insight to the support they have provided to the HBPS over the last decade. Wren Dugan has been assisting the HBPS with developing grant proposals to secure additional funding for various phases of construction of the Anthracite Region Miner’s Memorial and park development. The HBPS is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the history and legacy of the Anthracite Region’s last standing coal breaker. Established in 1990, the HBPS has been working toward creating a public park on the three acres they own in front of the breaker, including an 8 x 10 foot black Vermont granite Anthracite Region Miner’s Memorial to be installed in the park. A Buy-A-Brick campaign is underway and pavers that will be laid out at the site will be made from recycled pervious pavement and iron oxide, a metal commonly found in local abandoned mine drainage discharges. The HBPS hopes to have benches and plantings along walking trails, interspersed with interpretive educational kiosks detailing the workings of the breaker and life in a patch town. The Huber Breaker still remains under ownership of #1 Contracting, Inc. and is private property. Trespassing is illegal and not encouraged. EPCAMR received and signed liability waivers provided by #1 Contracting, Inc. in order to conduct the tour at the site.
For more information or to schedule a tour of the Huber Breaker, visit www.huberbreaker.org.
