Apply now for the $5,000 ARIPPA AML/AMD Award.  EPCAMR and WPCAMR have partnered with the Anthracite Region Independent Power Producer’s Association (ARIPPA) to offer a competitive award to watershed organizations working on Abandoned Mine Land (AML) and/or Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) remediation projects. Grants at a maximum of $2,500 will be awarded to at least one eligible environmental organization or Conservation District in the Anthracite Region and one eligible environmental organization or Conservation District in the Bituminous Region in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania actively working on AML/AMD issues. Grant proposals should be for on-the-ground AML/AMD construction projects with a completion date between August 2016 and August 2017. Proposals are due July 8th. The amount granted is dependent upon demonstrated need. Applying organizations must support the mission of ARIPPA, including the removal and conversion of waste coal into alternative energy and the beneficial use of CFB ash for AML/AMD reclamation. You can obtain the official Request for Proposals and supporting documents here.

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EPCAMR staff and colleagues review underground mine maps from the Wyoming Valley

EPCAMR intends to utilize these funds for staff time and printing costs of the mine maps for each of the municipalities within the Anthracite coal measures, such as Wyoming Borough, Jenkins Township, Plains Township, and Shickshinny Borough. If there are any municipalities, central to Wyoming Valley, that would like to host a few workshops to aid in conducting the underground mine map outreach component of the grant, please contact Robert at (570) 371-3523.

“EPCAMR is skilled in interpreting surface and underground mine maps and would like to continue to provide technical assistance to the public and our local governments. We also have the printing capabilities to produce large maps, which are easy to view,” says Robert.

Large maps are available for review at the Pittsburgh Office of Surface Mining (OSM), where many maps were transferred, following the closure of the Wilkes-Barre Regional Office several years ago. Maps are also available at Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation (PA DEP BAMR) and the PA DEP Regional District Mining Office Bureau of Deep Mine Safety in Pottsville, PA. Due to the condition, size, and continual use of the maps by these state agencies, a large majority of the maps generally stay within these offices.

Underground Mine Map

EPCAMR has been able to acquire a large majority of the OSM Folio maps in digital format over the last few years and are still actively acquiring maps under a 3-year grant agreement with the PA DEP Mine Subsidence Insurance Program. EPCAMR staff scans, catalogues, geo-references, and digitizes the maps for public use. Nearly 10,000 maps have already been approved by the PA DEP and posted to the PA Mine Map Atlas. However, our scope of work requires us to take certain map collections, based on specific storage locations of the maps. The PennEast Community Connector Grant will allow us to focus on some of the maps that we have already processed. Many municipalities do not have the staffing, expertise, funding, or printing capabilities to acquire the maps needed for their own planning efforts or efforts of the public seeking information about the underground mine or surface maps.

EPCAMR staff catalogues the data collected from these maps in the Pennsylvania Historic Underground Mine Map Inventory System (PHUMMIS). This database contains information relevant to past and present underground mining throughout Pennsylvania, including, but not limited to, maps, indices, mine locations, and the like. The information contained in this database has been compiled from various sources and, as a result, neither the DEP or EPCAMR can guarantee its accuracy. The DEP and EPCAMR assume no responsibility for the accuracy of information contained in the database. The DEP and EPCAMR disclaim any responsibility for any actions, or lack thereof, taken in reliance on the information contained in the database. Users agree that the DEP and EPCAMR employees, officers, agents, and contractors are not and will not be liable for any damages or losses of any kind, resulting directly or indirectly from the reliance on the information contained in the database.

Figure 1.

EPCAMR is an advocate for the environment and protection of land and water resources that have been adversely affected by past mining practices throughout Northeastern and North Central Pennsylvania. During the grant review process, the Selection Committee identified a number of strengths in our proposal. EPCAMR is an advocate for safe practices when it comes to the construction of the pipeline in the chosen area. Given the Wyoming Valley’s past mining and flooding history, we recommended redirecting the pipeline around the Valley, however, PennEast still chose to fund EPCAMR, based on our merit to provide valuable technical assistance to the downstream communities in the Wyoming Valley.

The sets of maps that will be provided to local municipalities will ultimately provide PennEast with geologic and hydrogeologic conditions of the proposed pipeline crossing area. EPCAMR was very upfront with PennEast at the initial public hearing and in our comments to the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC). PennEast may have difficulty finding a safe river crossing for placement of the 36-42 inch transmission line. “EPCAMR has a means of researching the conditions of the underground mine workings in the Wyoming Valley to make a determination as to what lies beneath not only our homes, but our river as well. This funding could not have come at a better time for EPCAMR, when funding sources are getting harder and harder to come by. We feel privileged for the opportunity to provide these valuable technical services to our local governments in need of this information. EPCAMR staff seeks funds from all types of sources that will allow us to work in the best interest of the public,” explained Robert.

Alisa E. Harris, Head of Government and Community Affairs, mentioned in her award letter to EPCAMR that “the PennEast Pipeline Company, LLC, is pleased to support your efforts and we look forward to building a strong partnership to advancing our mutual commitment to environment and energy education. Community engagement is important to PennEast. The Community Connector Grant Program is another excellent opportunity for us to support the communities where we operate and where our employees make their home.” The PennEast press release can be found here.

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Contact    Kelly Donaldson, 717.234.5550, ext. 4205

Resolution Recognizes Significance of Clean Water in the Keystone State

(HARRISBURG) – The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) applauds the Luzerne County Council for adopting a Clean Water Counts resolution, calling on state officials to make clean water a top priority for the Keystone State.

“Healthy families, strong communities, and a thriving Pennsylvania economy depend on clean water,” said Harry Campbell, CBF’s Pennsylvania Executive Director. “We applaud and thank Luzerne County Council members for publicly voicing their support for clean water in the Keystone State.”

CBF embarked on the Clean Water Counts campaign in response to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) most recent statewide surface waters assessment. The results show that of the 86,000 miles of waterways flowing through the Commonwealth, nearly 20,000 miles are polluted. They also reported that the top pollution sources are agricultural activities, abandoned mine drainage (AMD), and runoff from urban and suburban communities. EPCAMR is a partner in that campaign.

Abandoned mine drainage (AMD) pollutes more than 5,500 miles of Pennsylvania’s waterways, and its bright orange, or often neon-blue hue is visually haunting. But AMD does more than just pollute, it literally renders a stream lifeless. There are no fish, crayfish, not even grasses in these toxic streams.

In Luzerne County, streams like the Nescopeck and Sugarloaf, even the mighty Lackawanna River, which is a major tributary of the Susquehanna River, are polluted by AMD. In total, 165 of the 1,238 miles of waterways flowing through the County are devastated by AMD. Other sources of pollution include urban and suburban runoff, which accounts for 32 miles of impairment, and sources categorized as unknown and other, which together account for 60 miles of pollution.

For nearly two decades, the Eastern PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation (EPCAMR), the leading regional non-profit environmental organization dealing with AMD, has been working in Luzerne County, and in other coalfield communities throughout the north eastern and north central coal regions of Pennsylvania to educate residents, and to assist with the reclamation of the lands, streams, and other natural resources polluted by AMD.

Robert Hughes, Executive Director of the program, is committed to turning things around in the region and in Luzerne County.

“We’re grateful for this public support of clean water by the Luzerne Council members,” said Hughes. “Out of the top 20 prioritized abandoned mine discharges within the Anthracite Region of the Susquehanna River Basin, 12 of them have concentrated, devastating impacts in Luzerne County. It’s EPCAMR’s mission to educate, seek funding for reclamation, and to help improve our local communities. Luzerne County’s new Clean Water Counts resolution will support us in those daily efforts.”

Robert Hughes, Executive Director of Eastern PA Coalition for abandoned mine reclamation, takes water samples in a mine drainage discharge from the Newport Lake (a water-filled stripping pit) in Newport Township, Luzerne County, PA (Michael J. Mullen)

Through public education and engagement, CBF is hoping to increase awareness of water pollution issues, like those in Luzerne County, and elsewhere in the Keystone State. The goal is to urge state officials to make clean water a priority and commit the needed funding and programs to ensure that the waters that we rely on for drinking and household uses, recreation, and to grow our food, all meet clean water standards.

In addition to calling on local officials to pass resolutions, CBF is also asking something of citizens.

“We’re asking all Pennsylvania residents to show their support for clean water by signing the Clean Water Counts online petition,” said Campbell. “It takes only a few minutes, but your signature will go a long way toward demonstrating the importance of clean water to our elected officials.”

Old Forge AMD Borehole entering the Lackawanna River

Online petition signatures will be accepted through October 18^th, the anniversary of the Clean Water Act. To learn more about the campaign go to cbf.org/PAForCleanWater.

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Kelsey is a hard worker, efficient, often quiet, yet focused, on fulfilling the scope of work of our MSI Mine Mapping Project. She has agreed to step into a leadership position where given her seniority and experience in the EPCAMR Office, she will now be able to train other Staff coming in to work on the project as positions are filled. She has done a great job to date and will be providing some training and technical assistance to David Svab, another former Watershed Outreach Intern, who is now in the GIS Technician position, fulfilling the scanning and cataloging of the mine maps for the Northern Coal Fields. EPCAMR is still taking resumes to fill the other GIS Technician position that has room to move up, following training and provided that they can show they have achieved a high level of competency in the work load that they are given.

Robert E. Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director, stated, “I’m confident that from my very positive evaluation discussion with Kelsey earlier today, that since she is moving into the GIS Specialist position, knowing I expect her to take a more assertive leadership role from within the EPCAMR Staff, especially within our GIS Team, which, albeit is small at the moment, she will do an exceptional job! She is easy going, soft-spoken, goes with the flow, is a problem solver who works around hurdles, is getting more and more comfortable with the EPCAMR Staff, who are also laid back, yet very professional, have strong work ethics, and are very efficient and produce high quality work products, no matter what we are working on. She represents EPCAMR’s exceptional work standards that are a cut above the rest. It’s my job to put my Staff in positions where they can shine, allow them to grow professionally, mentor them, help them to find their passion, interact with the public, and develop strong positive working relationships among the Staff to build the strongest team that I possibly could to promote and support the mission and goals of EPCAMR. Like I’ve told her today, I am as sincere as they come and I like to treat my Staff like Family, because we spend as much or more time with each other on a daily basis than we do at home with our own families, and when we can make work seem like play and do it together as a family or team, it makes all of our work that much easier and enjoyable.”

Mike Hewitt, EPCAMR Program Manager, who oversees the GIS Team working on the project even went out of his way to create name templates for Dave and Kelsey yesterday with their titles on them out of fancy recycled bond paper and provided them to the two of them today. They were surprised and had a chuckle at the same time. Noone has ever made them a homemade name plate before. Robert joked, “It’s the little things we do to make our EPCAMR Family happy!” The smile on her face was priceless and bigger than the one that she had when she was an intern and I caught her off-guard and took a photo of her for the Staff Page when she first started with EPCAMR.”

Kelsey Biondo, who was promoted today from her old title of GIS Technician to EPCAMR GIS Specialist is all smiles as she gets handed her new homemade name plate.

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Paul Dunay III, EPCAMR’s newest Staff member working on 3 screens on his first day as our GIS Technician under our recently funded Mine Map Grant

EPCAMR is proud to announce that one of several positions has been filled part-time internship, by Paul P. Dunay III, as a GIS Technician to assist us with beginning to process mine maps and other mine related information into electronic formats and 3D images.  The project that EPCAMR is working on with the Commonwealth of PA is to process information that is either owned or under the control of the PA Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP), EPCAMR, or form private coal company or other collections. As a result of work that will be done by Paul and other interns, processed mining information will be available for use in computer systems that allow the information to be provided to the public in a fraction of the time it takes to provide them with unprocessed information that should have been made available to the public many years ago.  The processed information can be used by property owners and developers, by EPCAMR for our own purposes in mapping the Anthracite Coal Region’s underground mining areas and mine pool complexes, and by the PA DEP to further enhance the electronic systems that deliver mining information and abandoned mine information to the public to contribute to safe and economic mining practices as well as more informed decisions on where to locate, build, or buy a home or business, for instance. In addition, the work that Paul and other EPCAMR Staff will be doing for the next 3 years, the information in electronic form establishes permanent records that will not deteriorate over  time, that can be further processed and stored without the need for costly filing and warehousing.

EPCAMR is the ONLY non-profit regional environmental organization in PA to recently receive a 3 year Mine Map Grant in the amount of $342,143 to hire 3-4 additional part-time interns that have already been working with EPCAMR over the last several years who were working on other Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and abandoned mine related projects and work that are experienced, proficient, and are now going to have the opportunity to work nearly full-time, up to 30-35 hours/week. Two more GIS Technicians are expected to be hired by the Fall of 2013 and a GIS Specialist will expand EPCAMR’s organizational capacity to fulfill the grant obligations of scanning, geo-referencing, and digitizing historic mine maps and other image files need to be archived and converted to a digital and electronic medium. 9 other Major Universities and Colleges across PA received a grant in this first round of funding. EPCAMR has put itself in a very unique position as a State-wide leader and has the expertise in the interpretation of underground mine maps, mapping underground coal measures and mine pools, and has over 22 years experience in the reclamation of abandoned mine lands and the remediation of abandoned mine drainage (AMD) across PA. EPCAMR will be undertaking the complex assignments of scanning, geo-referencing, and digitizing mine maps and images from the Pottsville District Mining Office, the Wilkes-Barre PA DEP’s Bureua of Abandoned Mine Reclamation (BAMR), EPCAMR’s own private collection, and are going to be working in partnership with the Earth Conservancy, to see if they would like us to bring in their mine map collection at a much higher resolution than they currently have for the Blue Coal Corporation’s collection that is housed in the same Office Building as EPCAMR.

“Mining information is needed by the residents and developers of the mining regions of PA to make informed decisions whenever a house or building is built or purchased, when roads, schools, or other public facilities are constructed, AMD treatment systems are constructed, or when mining and reclamation operations are conducted.  The information is vital to the economic activity and vitality of PA and to the public health and safety of the residents of the mining regions and those working in or visiting these areas,” Robert Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director emphatically stated. “Here in the Anthracite Region, particularly with the closure of the Federal Office of Surface Mining’s NE Regional Headquarters that used to be located in the Stegmaier Building, in Wilkes-Barre, where the original mine map folios and other related historic archival information used to be housed for the public to view, EPCAMR felt that we had a niche and obligation to continue to dig a little deeper into our work in the Region and propose to continue to do this type of technical assistance for our mining communities as a public service, fulfilling our mission and goals of our organization.” he stated with a passion. Special State funds are financing the Mine Map Grant under the authority of the PA Surface Mining Conservation and Reclamation Act, the Bituminous Coal Mine Safety Act, and the Mine Subsidence Fund regulations set forth at 25 PA. Code Section 401.51. Details about the programs within the Commonwealth of PA that will utilize the information that EPCAMR will be providing can be found at www.pamsi.org

Paul is a 2009 graduate of Tunkhannock High School in Wyoming County and a recent May 2013 Keystone College graduate with a Bachelor’s of Science in Environmental Biology with an interest in GIS. His previous internship experience was with the Susquehanna County Conservation District, a partner in the EPCAMR region conducting Administrative reviews of Erosion & Sedimentation Control Plans, conducting site inspections and field investigations, and with the PA Fish & Boat Commission, where he used GIS to locate the mouth of tributaries to identify private property owners to seek permission to access the streams to conduct electro-shocking and fishery population data under the Unassessed Waters Initiative. He has tutored students as well as taught GIS labs first as volunteer tutor and then eventually became a paid GIS Instructor at Keystone College. He has experience in applied GIS techniques to create interactive web maps and is very proficient in ArcGIS v9.3 to 10.1.

Robert stated, “This previous experience is going to allow Paul to jump right into the scanning and geo-referencing of the mine maps with very little training needed and that is a bonus for EPCAMR. One thing that I look at right off the top when a resume is submitted looking for internships or work is what previous internship experience or work experience does a person have in the areas that we need. If they don’t have that experience, the resume gets moved down the pile a little further, while others like Paul’s floats to the top. This is yet another reason why obtaining internship experiences early in one’s collegiate career is vitally important. Don’t look at the internship for how much of a stipend you will get, look at in terms of how much first hand experience and knowledge will one gain that will make you more competitive and stand out among those around you that are also looking for the same opportunity.” Paul’s other hobbies and interests are in computers, obviously, playing the guitar, and he is a Black Belt Instructor in Martial Arts. Robert jokes, “At least, we know that if the EPCAMR Staff is in the field and are approached by, let’s say a black bear, that we can count on Paul to be our safety guy and allow him to confront the bear first in his defensive fighting stance while Mike and I play dead.”

“Doing GIS is one of my favorite things to do. Even though it is only considered a tool, I find it to be much more than that. I like to look at it from a deeper perspective. I was attracted by the GIS work EPCAMR was doing in the Lackawanna Valley trying to decode and map the underground mine pools that were associated with the Scranton-Metro Mine Pool Complex. The 3D mine mapping project allows me to use my skills in GIS to help PA Coalfield communities, map, and clean up the rivers and streams impacted by AMD. AMD is a serious problem in our area and I want to become a local part of the solution and keep my talents in this region. The work in GIS that Robert and Mike, along with the other interns at EPCAMR is excellent and not being done by anyone else with the level of technical expertise and knowledge that these guys have. I want to add to that knowledge base as well as absorb some of that institutional knowledge that this reputable and respectable regional non-profit has to offer to increase my level of understanding of the mining region of Northeastern and NorthCentral PA, where I grew up and now have been giving an opportunity to become a part of the solution.” Paul stated with a sense of excitement on his face.

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