Abandoned Mine Posts

by Andy McAllister and Jeffrey Gerard

Breaker Boys in Eastern PA

from the Library of Congress

Coal mining practices of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were similar across the country, and the widespread use of child labor was one such thread binding coal communities. A miner might start his career as young as seven years old, especially if his family needed another breadwinner to endure the injury or death of an adult.

Called “Breaker Boys” in the anthracite coal region of Eastern Pennsylvania and “Bony Pickers” in most other areas, these young boys worked in a tipple, where the mine cars were tipped to empty their coal. (Today, the term tipple is generally applied to any surface structure of an underground mine.) Bony Pickers removed rock, slate, and other non-burnable debris from coal as it passed by on a conveyor to the coal breaker. The coal breaker processed the chunks of coal, breaking them into pieces sized according to the coal’s use. Bony Pickers made about sixty cents for a ten-hour day of removing small pieces of rock by hand. They were not allowed to wear gloves, so bloody, worn fingertips were common.

(more…)

by Andy McAllister, Watershed Coordinator

Alas, the overlooked vermiform, or worm-like creatures, found living in the stream bottom are often misidentified, entirely ignored in the biological sample, or relegated to the most general of descriptions. As we delve into the world of the worm, we find that their world is infinitely more complex than it may seem, with a wide range of variations on the theme “worm.”

Horsehair worm escaping
from its blackfly host

North American Benthological Society

First, we have aquatic oligochaetes (commonly known as aquatic earthworms). Unlike their terrestrial cousins, aquatic oligochaetes are very small and often only slightly thicker than a human hair. These worms adapt well to places where organic pollution is present, such as that coming from an offending wastewater discharge or from cattle. As detritivores (animals that eat bits of dead and decaying organic matter), they happily plow thru the soft sediment, consuming just about anything small enough to fit into their mouths. But don’t be fooled: in spite of their ability to thrive in areas high in organic pollution, aquatic oligochaetes need just the right type of stream bottom. Without the right sediment, large numbers of a particular worm will have trouble surviving.

Oligochaetes are an interesting lot, exhibiting strange characteristics. Some aquatic oligochaetes can swim. Some reproduce asexually by creating long chains of zooids, miniature clones that eventually break off and become separate worms, resulting in population explosions. Some respire through their skin, while others have simple but beautiful gill structures to extract oxygen from the water.

(more…)

As Congress reconvenes this month, the Pennsylvania AML Campaign is calling on the House and Senate to reauthorize funding for cleanup of abandoned mine lands. The program that funds reclamation of abandoned mine sites is scheduled to expire next year, unless Congress passes S.2616, a bill with astonishing support from mine workers, environmentalists, coal companies, and hunting and fishing groups.

• AML Coalition Tells Congress: Your Job’s Not Done – Reauthorize, This Year, Legislation to Clean Up Dangerous Abandoned Mine Land (Business Wire)

A recent newspaper article from the Altoona Mirror spotlights the role that AML Fund Reauthorization would have in cleaning up abandoned mine sites in Blair County, Pennsylvania.

• Abandoned mine sites endangering Blair (Altoona Mirror)

A Mine’s Still-Toxic Legacy

Last week, The Washington Post wrote about acid mine drainage that pollutes Georges Creek in Western Maryland. The discharge had been only a trickle until a collapse within an abandoned coal mine triggered a surge in volume and acidity. The article describes the impacts to Georges Creek and recognizes the shortcoming of federal funding levels toward abandoned mine reclamation.

• Read the article here

Passive Treatment Inventory

The U.S. Office of Surface Mining has unveiled an online inventory of passive abandoned mine drainage treatment systems. The freely-accessible database compiles information about 300 treatment systems in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland, including their locations, technologies, costs, and funding sources.

• http://amd.osmre.gov/passtreat/