Abandoned Mine Posts

Holiday Wishes And A Note Of Thanks

As 2007 draws to a close, Andy and I take this opportunity to thank you, our growing number of subscribers of Abandoned Mine Posts, for your patronage. We both very much enjoy sharing our take on things having to do with abandoned mine reclamation and have been gratified by your positive feedback. We will strive to continue presenting information that is useful in your reclamation efforts in 2008.

Expect to see some changes in the appearance and format of AMP in the near future as we adopt some new technologies to make AMP more efficient to produce, and perhaps some surprises to enhance your experience.

We hope to be an interactive part of our readership and we very much value your perspectives. Please let us know of subjects or issues you think the abandoned mine reclamation community would be interested in learning more about. We certainly don’t claim to have all the answers, but we may be able to add something of value.

To you and yours, we wish you health and happiness for this holiday season and the coming year.

Bruce Golden and Andy McAllister

AMD and Mining Environments: Earth’s Early History

By Bruce Golden, Regional Coordinator

In this installment of AMD and Mining Environments, we’re going to take a side trip. The chemistry responsible for the formation of abandoned mine drainage is hardly unique to AMD. That same basic chemistry was responsible for transforming our planet’s environment into one friendly to higher life forms, us included, as we’ll see in a very brief account of earth’s early history.

Billions of years ago, the newly formed earth was transformed by a massive infusion of water. One theory has hoards of water-rich comets bombarding a barren, lifeless earth as the origin of the water which ultimately covered the entire planet. Simple single celled life is thought to have had its origins in the depths of this proto ocean.

At that time, the earth’s atmosphere had no oxygen and high levels of carbon dioxide courtesy of volcanism. Undersea volcanic activity was also responsible for creating very high concentrations of iron in an acidic ocean. The water would have been a deep olive green because the iron was in the form of dissolved ferrous ions. And without oxygen, the iron simply remained dissolved. Viewed from our perspective today, the oceans would have been AMD on steroids, and indeed an environment that would have been very hostile to beings such as ourselves.

Over hundreds of millions of years, the first early continents formed. Yeah, volcanoes were involved with this too. In the shallow shore areas blue-green algae appeared in colonies known as stromatolites. Blue-green algae were pioneers of photosynthesis, a process which consumes carbon dioxide and uses sunlight as its source of energy. The waste product of photosynthesis is oxygen. The geologic record shows vast numbers of stromatolites populated these shallows worldwide. Stromatolites produced tremendous quantities of oxygen over vast time periods, eventually and amazingly transforming the earth’s atmosphere into one rich in oxygen, similar to today’s.

As the atmosphere became rich in oxygen, the transfer of oxygen to ocean waters also occurred. Oxygen in turn reacted with the dissolved ferrous iron to form solid iron oxides that settled to the ocean floor. Vast layers of iron rich ores found worldwide are the legacy of this crucial period in the planet’s development. Also, a legacy of that time is blue skies and blue ocean waters, all thanks to oxygen, a product of life.

What the primordial Earth may have looked like.

Illustration courtesy of Case Western Reserve University, Center for Molecular Biology

Note: The History Channel occasionally runs a documentary called “How the Earth Was Formed”. It’s a wonderful introduction for the layman. Watch for it.

by Andy McAllister, Watershed Coordinator

Since the “Life in Our Streams” series began, our journey has taken us through a myriad of life forms inhabiting our underwater world. From the bacteria, smallest of the small, to the bottom dwelling creatures known as benthic invertebrates, all form an important part of the aquatic food web. As we leave the relative protection of the stream bottom and journey into the expanse of the water column travelling toward the surface, other life forms begin to become apparent.

Aquatic organisms are often categorized by where they live in the water. As we’ve already seen, benthic organisms live in or on the stream bottom and feed on plant and animal material that collects on the bottom. Crayfish, mussels, and stonefly and mayfly larvae are examples of benthic organisms.

Pelagic organisms are those that live within the water column. These organisms may float or swim and include everything from tiny plants and animals known as plankton, to fishes, frogs, turtles, and a wide variety of insects.

Fishes are probably the best-known pelagic inhabitants of our streams and rivers.  The fish’s ability to live in the water column depends upon the speed at which it can swim and how long it can sustain that speed. Of course, this ability often varies greatly between species. Continuous swimming expends a tremendous amount of energy, so fishes tend to spend only short periods in full current. Instead, individuals remain close to the bottom or the banks, behind obstacles, sheltered from the current, often swimming in the current only to feed or change locations. Some fish species have adapted to living primarily on the stream bottom, rarely venturing into the open water column. These fishes are flattened top to bottom to reduce resistance to the current and often have eyes on top of their heads to see what is happening above them. These types of fishes are known as “demersal” fishes. An example of a demersal fish is the sculpin.

Other vertebrates that inhabit streams include amphibians, such as salamanders, reptiles (e.g. snakes and turtles) various bird species, and mammals (e.g. otters and beavers). With the exception of a few species, these vertebrates are not tied to water as fishes are and spend part of their time in terrestrial habitats.

Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) is just as dangerous for inhabitants of the water column as it is for benthic organisms. Fish in particular are susceptible in several ways. The primary causes of fish death in acid waters are through loss of sodium ions from the blood and loss of oxygen in their tissues. Sodium loss interferes with the process known as osmoregulation, the way in which fish maintain the concentration of their body fluids. As a result of a sodium loss, there is a constant influx of water into the body and loss of salts and ions from the blood outwards. The end product is that the fish would rapidly accumulate water and die. Acid water also attacks the fish’s gills, increasing the gills’ permeability to water, adversely affecting gill function and reducing the amount of oxygen they can absorb.

Low pH levels that are not directly lethal adversely affect fish growth rates and reproduction . Some fish, such as brook trout, are tolerant of low pH. However, it’s the presence of dissolved metals found in many AMD discharges, that decreases the fish’s ability to tolerate low pH. Finally, metals precipitating out in the water column, collects on the gill structures, further restricting oxygen absorption into the blood.

AMD impacts on Pennsylvania’s native brook trout populations for example, are localized. But where it happens, it’s generally severe. In fact, if we were to total up the entire area of brook trout habitat in Pennsylvania that’s impacted by AMD, it would be larger than the state of Connecticut.

For more information:
Conserving the Eastern Brook Trout by the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture

Gallery of PA Fishes by the PA Fish and Boat Commission

by Andy McAllister, Watershed Coordinator

The month of December, exactly 100 years ago would become the deadliest month in US coal mining history. News accounts of the day would eventually label it, “The Dreadful Month”.

As November waned, mining communities across Western Pennsylvania and the rest of the bituminous region began to look forward to Christmas and, for Orthodox Christian miners, the feast of St. Nicholas on December 19th. But the joy of the impending season was to be interrupted by horror.

The month began with an explosion that killed 34 miners inside the Naomi Mine in Fayette County, Pennsylvania on Dec. 1. Most were buried in a mass grave.

Five days later, on December 6th, the single greatest mine disaster in American history occurred in Monongah, West Virginia where massive explosions and roof collapses killed 362 men, many of whom were Italian immigrants from the regions of Calabria and Molise.

Ten days later, on Dec.16, an explosion in Yolanda, Ala. killed 57 miners, many by asphyxiation.

The Darr Mine Disaster is known as the worst in Pennsylvania history and one of the worst in US history. On December 19, 1907 a gas and dust explosion killed 239 men and teenage boys in the dark tunnels of the Darr Mine in western Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Most of those killed were Hungarian immigrant laborers. Some had come from the Naomi mine which had closed after the explosion there several weeks before.

In the time leading up to that fateful day at the Darr Mine, the mine foreman, Mr. W.S. Campbell had an uneasy feeling. For several months preceeding the deadly blast, Mr. Campbell was preoccupied with the amount of coal dust, gassy conditions and poor ventilation in the mine. He repeatedly voiced his concerns to the company about the unsafe conditions and the potential for an explosion. Similar concerns were voiced by others at many mines throughout the bituminous region. However, due to company greed and the ever-increasing demand for coal, the calls for safer working conditions in American mines went largely unheeded. Mining experts in Europe were aware that American mines were a tragedy waiting to happen. Newspaper articles across Europe repeatedly voiced horror at what they called “the general disregard for life” by Theodore Roosevelt’s administration and coal companies for not creating a safer work place for the miners. “In Europe, we regard human welfare as more important than profit”, stated one German newspaper.

Eventually, the company reluctantly agreed to Mr. Campbell’s concerns and began digging a new ventilation shaft at Darr mine. Mr. Campbell told his wife he couldn’t even think about Christmas until the shaft was completed.

Little more than a day’s work was left for workers to finish digging the final 40 feet of the shaft. It was 24 hours too late. The Morning Review of Greensburg, PA reported, “The earth was shaken for miles around as by an earthquake”. Almost immediately, families rushed toward the mine from Jacob’s Creek across the Youghiogheny River, where most of the miners’ homes were located. The only way to quickly reach the mouth of the mine from Jacob’s Creek was by means of a “sky ferry”, a basket-like car suspended from a cable in which the men pull themselves back and forth. The sky ferry could only accomodate six persons at a time.

After viewing the gruesome scene, the rescue workers recognized the hopelessness of the situation and their job quickly turned to one of recovery. Crews worked in two-hour shifts to avoid being overcome by the gas as they searched for bodies. It would take days to recover the bodies from the rubble. Mr. Campbell’s body was among the first to be found, huddled along with four others in the little wooden structure where Mr. Campbell had his office while in the mine.

The total dead at Darr could have been much higher, surpassing even the Monongah disaster, if not for the fact that many of the miners were recent immigrants of the Orthodox faith celebrating the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 19 according to the Julian calendar. As a result, nearly 200 miners chose not to go to work on December 19th.

The month of December 1907 would end as it began, on a tragic note. On December 31st, a mine explosion in Carthage, New Mexico would claim the lives of 11 miners.

By the time this deadly month ended, over 700 miners across the country lay dead. The final death toll in Pennsylvania Anthracite and Bituminous mines that year was 1,400. From 1870, the time when mine accident records began to be kept in Pennsylvania, to the present, over 51,000 men have died in Pennsylvania mines.

The Darr and Monongah disasters marked the first use of a self-contained breathing apparatus in a deep-mine rescue in the United States. Several years later, on July 1, 1910 an Act of Congress established the U.S. Bureau of Mines. However, that bureau was charged with only the investigation of mining disasters and with education, not regulation.

How Could These Disasters Have Happened?

An article in the The United Mine Workers Journal in Dec. 1, 1957, fifty years after the dreadful month, provided some opinions as to how such horror could occur. “All of the mining disasters of December, 1907 had several things in common. The main thing was management neglect and in some cases brutal criminal negligence. Black powder was used for blasting in all of these stricken mines. Coal dust was allowed to accumulate in spite of warnings from England that it was highly explosive. All of the mines were gassy and seem to have been poorly ventilated. It is quite possible that the Jacobs Creek (Darr Mine) disaster would not have taken place if the men had been allowed by Providence one more day to dig out 40 feet of coal to reach a new shaft the company had sunk in an effort to improve ventilation in the mine”.

Deadly gas is found naturally in all coal seams. It is the flammable gas (mostly methane), along with coal dust ignited by stray sparks or the miners’ lamps, that caused such tremendous explosions. At the end of the 19th century, “electrical contrivances” were becoming widely used in mines. However, this new technology was centered on increasing output, rather than improving mining safety. The electric coal cutters created even more coal dust, further compounding an already hazardous situation.

Coal dust in mines was commonly known as “bug dust”. Build-ups of a hazardous gas in a mine were known as “damps”, possibly from the German word “Dampf” which means steam or vapor:

Black damp: a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in a mine can cause suffocation.
After damp: similar to black damp, an after damp consists of carbon dioxide and nitrogen and forms after a mine explosion.
Fire damp: consists of mostly methane, a flammable gas.
Stink damp: so named for the rotten egg smell of the sulfur, a stink damp can explode.
White damp: mainly carbon monoxide, suffocates like black damp

Disaster scene at Monongah, WV., December 1907.

For more information:

WQED Television, “ON-Q” Special Edition: The Darr Mine Disaster, Dec. 19 at 7:30pm.

Times WV Article on the Monongah Disaster .

Heinz History Center “Darkest Month” Exhibit.