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AMD:
Reflecting conditions left behind from a by-gone era, like man y
of the streams in our region, Scott Township's Scrubgrass Run,
which drains into Chartiers Creek, is polluted by abandoned coal
mine drainage, commonly referred to as AMD.
MITIGATION: The
Scrubgrass Run AMD Project mitigates this pollution passively
using a collection pond. The orange sediment recovered
from the site, referred to as "yellow-boy" is
recycled and used for pigment in paints and dyes.
USES: Con servancy
board member Keith Breitenstein has dyed our conservancy
T-shirts with this retrieved orange iron oxide precipitate from
the site. Adding the orange iron pigment to
cement yields a lasting warm orange color when pouring sidewalks
and steps or mortaring walls and repointing bricks - quite an
improvement over the usual boring grey. Robin Anthony came
up with this idea after noticing the red iron oxide mortar in
her turn of the century Crafton home.
FUNDING: The
original grant for the Scrubgrass Run Abandoned Mine Drainage
(AMD) project was obtained in 1995 from the DEP. The grant
was for $62,000. Matching funds for the project was
obtained from Scott Township, the Office of Surface Mining, The
Scott Conservancy, and the Heinz Endowments.
In
a1996 awards ceremony, the Scott Conservancy was named
Environmental Group of the Year for 1996 by the Allegheny County
Conservation District for its AMD passive reclamation project on
Scrubgrass Run. The Award recognized the conservancy's
joint effort with the Chartiers Valley School District and the
township to clean up Scott's Scrubgrass Run watershed, polluted
by abandoned coal mine drainage. Scrubgrass Run flows into
Chartiers Creek.
In
1999 The Scott Conservancy obtained an additional grant for
$50,000 from the DEP to install a mechanical aeration system to
increase the efficiency of the procedure at the Scrubgrass Run
AMD site.
The
Scott Conservancy was awarded an additional grant of $100,000
from the EPA for further remediation at the Scrubgrass site.
Work began in the Spring of 2001.
MONITORING: Don
McGuirk, one of our board members, is seeking volunteers to
help with a Scrubgrass Run stream monitoring project.
Scrubgrass Run is the stream whose waters are being cleansed of
precipitates by our AMD project.
VOLUNTEERS: Although
the Scrubgrass Run Abandoned Mine Drainage Project was conceived
and constructed by engineering professionals, the Scott
Conservancy would also like to thank the volunteers who donated
their time to this project, for those who help spread the word
about our efforts to reduce the abandoned mine drainage problem,
and those who educate the public by leading hikes through our
facilities.
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