Video by Michael Hewitt

Article By Paul Golias, Correspondent

The massive water pools under the Wyoming Valley are both a potential blessing and a curse.

The topmost level of the stratified 274.3 billion gallons of water is useable for industrial and commercial applications. The water could be purified for drinking if a drought emergency required such actions. That is the blessing.

The curse is the potential for subsidence is the pool is so dramatically disturbed that the ebb and flow of water causes surface problems ranging from flooding to serious subsidence that damages homes and businesses. Additionally, tapping the topmost strata of water would leave polluted water for potential future uses.

“Is there a danger? Yes.” said Robert Hughes, Executive Director of EPCAMR. “We need to focus on quality and stratification,” he said.

We know more about the water pool today than any period in the history of heavily-mined Wyoming Valley due to the extensive pool mapping work of EPCAMR. Hughes said EPCAMR used surface mine maps, underground mine maps, and cross section maps withing municipal boundaries obtained from the now-closed Federal Office of Surface Mining Folio Maps. The maps had been housed in the Stegmaier Building, Wilkes-Barre.

In addition, EPCAMR staff has monitored mine pool levels through boreholes around the Wyoming Valley. Unfortunately, some of those boreholes are being paved over.

Michael Hewitt, EPCAMR Program Manager, said a borehole in the Hanover Industrial Park was recently paved over during construction of new roads in connection with a major warehouse project there.

The borehole, Hewitt said, was near a sewer cover on the shoulder of the road. He could easily take readings of the Huber Colliery pool in that borehole, he said.

“We are down to 22 boreholes in the Wyoming Valley,” Hewitt said. The 15 that have been lost include three paved over in Exeter Borough and three more in Plymouth Borough, Hewitt said.

Hughes said it is vital to focus on the importance of the water pools due to the interest by natural gas producers in using mine water for fracking, the process that uses water under pressure to fracture the underground shale deposits that hold natural gas.

At the same time, plans for the PennEast Pipeline are unclear and EPCAMR has warned that a pipeline placed in the alluvial material atop the mine water pools could impact the pools, depending on the depth of the pipeline. Also, barrier pillars that separate the pools are in play, Hughes said.

The alluvial material, mainly sand and gavel, has been dubbed The Buried Valley of the Susquehanna. The alluvium is at various thicknesses under the Susquehanna, such as 142 feet at the levee in Wyoming. There are many veins of coal mapped under the Susquehanna and the entire valley, Hughes said. The withdrawal of water and the disturbance of the pools poses “a risk for mine subsidence,” he said.

Hughes recommended that people who do not have mine subsidence insurance consider obtaining a policy. He estimated only 10 percent of Wyoming Valley homeowners have such insurance.

Meanwhile, EPCAMR is providing municipalities in the former anthracite mining area with free mining maps to assist in community planning, coping with possible natural gas pipeline placement, and with mine subsidence issues.

Ironically, a $5,000 grant to the agency from PennEast Pipeline’s Community Connector Grant Program made the project possible. PennEast said it links with not-for-profit organizations to support safety, environment and education, and energy sector workforce development.

Hughes said the top 20 feet of water in the pools is “relatively clean.” The next 30-40 feet gets murkier and sediment increases at lower depths until the bottom of the pool where the water is “blackest of black,” he said.

Some mine water flows into streams and acid mine drainage projects have been underway for years. EPCAMR has been involved in those as has Earth Conservancy, where EPCAMR has its offices.

The water can flow back and forth between pools, across barriers left in place by mining companies as boundary lines. Some barriers were removed when one company bought another, Hughes said.

Using historical data and current water measurements, EPCAMR arrived at the staggering 274.3 billion gallons estimate for the mine pools under the valley. That does not include the Butler Mine Pool for which data is lacking.

Mine water is being used for geothermal energy development and industrial processes. The ARIPPA co-generaltion plant in Schuylkill County uses mine water to cool a tower. Frackville Wheelabrator uses mine water to runa  stream generator that heats and cools the state correctional facility at Frackville.

Earlier this month, Kenneth M. Klemow, professor of biology and environmental sciences at Wilkes Unviersity, and colleagues released a report on the potential impact of natural gas drilling on surface water, such as streams, creeks, and rivers. The predictive model did not prove drilling impacts on streams but it did project vulnerability.

Hughes said much more work needs to be done to study the mine pools, including how they impact surface water. He said a regional approach is necessary, an approach taken in a landmark 1949 report on underground water in area mines by Steven Ash and others of the Bureau of Mine, U.S. Department of the Interior. EPCAMR used Ash’s data in its calculations.

Hughes is on Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection’s Pipeline Infratructure Task Force’s Environmental Protection Workgroup to address pipeline infrastructure and development concerns related to abandoned mines.

The post Water under Wyoming Valley a Blessing and a Curse appeared first on epcamr.org.

Robert and Kelsey holding up a map of the Holmes vein; it’s nearly 20′ long!

EPCAMR Executive Director, Robert Hughes, tasked Samantha, following her recent evaluation and promotion, with creating a poster of the many mine map symbols that she and other staff have come across over the past year or so. She picked up quickly on some graphics design software tools and shortcuts, thanks to Gabby’s design knowledge. “I wanted her to be able to take the mine map symbols and create a quick reference guide, not only for the EPCAMR staff, but also for the general public (mining enthusiasts, preservationists, future interns, and the like). I wanted to produce it as a public service to those who may own old mine maps and don’t understand how to interpret them. My co-worker, Mike Hewitt, and I were trained by some of the best mining engineers in the Pennsylvania over the last few decades, and for this knowledge, we are forever thankful. There are many Anthracite mining company secrets, including proprietary use of symbols and mining terms (i.e., the same coal vein spanning across these mines having different names in each company). EPCAMR is now deciphering some of those ‘Anthracite Hieroglyphics,’ as I like to call them. The EPCAMR staff did a great job and public service by putting this quick little reference guide together.”

The EPCAMR staff can create digital points on the maps’ surface to locate these mining features within a geographic space and give them a latitude and longitude in terms of global positioning. The location then allows us to obtain a topographic elevation of the surface in order to make a determination of depth, such as to water levels, tunnels, drifts, slopes, shafts, gangways, and faults, among others.

This is an underground mine map of the Holmes Vein within the Silver Creek Colliery in Blythe Twp., PA.

Water elevations in the boreholes help us estimate volumes of water present in the underground mine pools and points underground at which mine water flows around, over, and sometimes through barrier pillars as it makes its way to the surface and discharges as abandoned mine drainage. We believe that much of the symbology is the same for the Bituminous Region of Western Pennsylvania, so the poster may prove useful to our counterparts like WPCAMR and Trout Unlimited, to assist them in interpreting the intricacies of underground mine mapping. EPCAMR is sure to find many more of these symbols as we continue to work through the thousands of maps that have yet to be processed. We may add another poster to this as a series if there prove to be more symbols.

EPCAMR provides this image online for free, however, should anyone want a paper copy of the poster mailed directly to them, it is available for order at the EPCAMR Online Store for a minimal processing fee.

EPCAMR Mine Map Symbology poster

Mine Map Symbology Poster (PDF Download)

EPCAMR is also looking for mine maps to add to our digital collection, which can then be provided to the state to upload to the Mine Subsidence Insurance Program website for public viewing. We will scan them and provide a digital copy back to the owners of the maps for free as a public service.

Should anyone have a collection in their homes and don’t know what to do with them, EPCAMR will take them as a donation or will scan them digitally for you and give them back. Contact Robert Hughes at (570) 371-3523 or rhughes@epcamr.org.

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Since Fall 2013, the EPCAMR Staff have been working to scan underground mine maps as part of the PA Department of Environmental Protection Mine Subsidence Insurance Program (PA DEP MSI). The 3 year project, which awarded EPCAMR approximately $340,000 in funding to process maps owned or controlled by the Commonwealth of PA, U.S. Office of Surface Mining (OSM) or from private collections, will aid the public in determining whether or not it is necessary to purchase Mine Subsidence Insurance. The scanned maps will include information about the four Anthracite coal fields, with some of Earth Conservancy’s maps from their Blue Coal collection also being scanned. EPCAMR was the only regional non-profit to receive funding due to our expertise and knowledge of the Anthracite region. All other funding was awarded to universities and colleges. By the end of the project, EPCAMR will complete a total of 8000 maps, with 2000 from DEP’s Pottsville Bureau of Deep Mine Safety (DMS), 5000 DEP Wilkes-Barre Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation (BAMR), 1000 maps from Earth Conservancy’s Blue Coal collection, unless some of the map numbers are reallocated due to underestimates within the State’s collections. In addition, EPCAMR will georeference 1000 maps from Pottsville District Mining Office (DMO) and 500 maps from Earth Conservancy’s Blue Coal, while digitizing 300 maps from Pottsville DMO, 500 maps from Wilkes-Barre BAMR, and 200 maps from Earth Conservancy’s Blue Coal. The total catalog of scanned maps will include 2000 maps from DEP’s Wilkes-Barre BAMR and 5000 mine images from DEP’s Mine Image Inventory.

Kelsey Biondo, who started as a Watershed Outreach Intern with EPCAMR in 2012, is one of our GIS Technicians, soon to be GIS Specialist working on the project. Bridgette Robinson, who joined EPCAMR in Fall 2013, was promoted from GIS Technician to GIS Specialist, however, will be moving on to full-time employment within the week and EPCAMR wishes her well. She was a very valuable asset to our EPCAMR Staff and the project.  The maps, which come in a variety of materials such as Mylar, Sepia, etc., are usually very wide and long, making them difficult to process using normal scanners. In order to mediate this issue, EPCAMR purchased two 56′ Color Trac Scanners in order to make the maps accessible by computer. Once the maps are scanned, they are uploaded into a system called PHUMMIS, which stands for Pennsylvania Historic Underground Mine Map Inventory System, where they are cropped and aligned. After this the images, which enter PHUMMIS as tagged image files, or TIF files, are converted to seamless image database files, or SID files. Converting the images to SID files allows for them to be compressed 20x smaller than their original size, making it easier for the files to be uploaded over the internet and used in other software programs, such as ArcGIS.

After the map files are converted, with the help of Michael Hewitt, EPCAMR Project Manager and Robert E. Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director, Staff will georeference the maps in order to align them with base maps and aerial photos. Georeferencing is a crucial part of the process because it ensures the greatest amount of accuracy for aligning the map with the actual land. Many of the maps are very old and hand-drawn, meaning that the map alone cannot serve as an accurate picture of where the mines are located. After the maps are georeferenced, Mike uploads the images and lines up the maps in order to look for specific features such as mine entrances, shaft length, depth, coverage area, and mine shaft elevation.  Determining these features allows for development of an accurate model of the underground mines. After features are determined, the plotted images are uploaded into geodatabase, the common spatial data storage and management framework for ArcGIS. If the elevation of the mine shaft can be determined, then a 3-D digital model of the mine can be produced.

“The project’s main goal is to scan and upload cropped and plotted maps to the internet so that public users will have easy access to information about mining in this area. Although many of the visible signs of coal mining, such as collieries, breakers, and entrances to mine shafts, have disappeared from this area, the vast majority of the mines remain, leaving a massive web of coal veins beneath the region’s cities and homes. By processing these underground maps, EPCAMR, in collaboration with the PA DEP, will be able to provide current home owners and business owners with the knowledge they need to secure Mine Subsidence Insurance. In addition, making this information available will help inform prospective home and business owners about what’s located under the area they are planning on purchasing or building a house or office,”  explained EPCAMR Executive Director, Robert Hughes. “You’d be surprised at how many people in the region do not have Mine Subsidence Insurance and should!,” exclaimed Robert Hughes. If you have any additional maps from private collections, EPCAMR is looking for them to be scanned and added to the PHUMMIS digital catalog. Contact rhughes@epcamr.org to donate maps!

The post EPCAMR Looking to Fill Part-time GIS Specialist Position to work on our Anthracite Mine Mapping Project Immediately appeared first on epcamr.org.

Kelsey Biondo, EPCAMR GIS Technician, examines scanned maps on her laptop.

Kelsey Biondo, who started as a Watershed Outreach Intern with EPCAMR in 2012, and Bridgette Robinson, who joined EPCAMR in Fall 2013, have since become valued GIS technicians and part time employee working on the PA DEP MSI Project. The maps, which come in a variety of materials such as Mylar, Sepia, etc., are usually very wide and long, making them difficult to process using normal scanners. In order to mediate this issue, EPCAMR purchased two 56′ Color Trac Scanners in order to make the maps accessible by computer. Once the maps are scanned, they are uploaded into a system called PHUMMIS, which stands for Pennsylvania Historic Underground Mine Map Inventory System, where they are cropped and aligned. After this the images, which enter PHUMMIS as tagged image files, or TIF files, are converted to seamless image database files, or SID files. Converting the images to SID files allows for them to be compressed 20x smaller than their original size, making it easier for the files to be uploaded over the internet and used in other software programs, such as ArcGIS.

Bridgette Robinson, EPCAMR GIS Technician, stand with her beloved 56′ ColorTrac Scanner.

After the map files are converted, Bridgette and Kelsey, with the help of Michael Hewitt, EPCAMR Project Manager, georeference the maps in order to align them with base maps and aerial photos. Georeferencing is a crucial part of the process because it ensures the greatest amount of accuracy for aligning the map with the actual land. Many of the maps are very old and hand-drawn, meaning that the map alone cannot serve as an accurate picture of where the mines are located. After the maps are georeferenced, Mike uploads the images and lines up the maps in order to look for specific features such as mine entrances, shaft length, depth, coverage area, and mine shaft elevation.  Determining these features allows for development of an accurate model of the underground mines. After features are determined, the plotted images are uploaded into geodatabase, the common spatial data storage and management framework for ArcGIS. If the elevation of the mine shaft can be determined, then a 3-D digital model of the mine can be produced.

Michael Hewitt-EPCAMR Project Manager, Robert Hughes- EPCAMR Executive Director, John Welsh- Philadephia Photographer, Alana Mauger- Philadelphia journalist, David Svab- EPCAMR Intern, and Bill Best- President of Membership for the Huber Breaker Preservation Society, examine an underground mine map.

“The project’s main goal is to scan and upload cropped and plotted maps to the internet so that public users will have easy access to information about mining in this area. Although many of the visible signs of coal mining, such as collieries, breakers, and entrances to mine shafts, have disappeared from this area, the vast majority of the mines remain, leaving a massive web of coal veins beneath the region’s cities and homes. By processing these underground maps, EPCAMR, in collaboration with the PA DEP, will be able to provide current home owners and business owners with the knowledge they need to secure Mine Subsidence Insurance. In addition, making this information available will help inform prospective home and business owners about what’s located under the area they are planning on purchasing or building a house or office,”  explained EPCAMR Executive Director, Robert Hughes. “You’d be surprised at how many people in the region do not have Mine Subsidence Insurance and should!,” exclaimed Robert Hughes. If you have any additional maps from private collections, EPCAMR is looking for them to be scanned and added to the PHUMMIS digital catalog. Contact rhughes@epcamr.org to donate maps!

This mine map measures 4.5×13 ft and that’s not even the largest EPCAMR has scanned!

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