Consol Making New Repairs to Morris Creek
Washington, PA Observer-Reporter
19 November 2009
By Scott Beveridge, Staff writer
sbeveridge@observer-reporter.com
PROSPERITY – Morris Township residents are concerned about losing their
water wells as a coal company taps into local sources to restore a
subsidence-damaged creek.
Nearly 60 township residents crowded a meeting Wednesday they arranged
with the state Department of Environmental Protection to inquire about
Crafts Creek, a portion of which was drained by a longwall mine.
“Are they affecting the water table? We want to know,” resident Jon
Carter said at the meeting at Morris Township Fire Hall.
Consol Energy of Cecil Township began taking steps to restore a flow of
water in the stream after a section of it dried up about three weeks
ago when it was undermined by Enlow Fork Mine, company spokesman Joe
Cerenzia said.
The company is drilling wells in Morris to pump water into the creek as
per DEP mining regulations, Cerenzia said.
He said Consol will monitor the water table and cease drilling if
problems arise at wells serving houses in the area.
The company is mining the sixth of its final longwall panel under the
stream. It had similar problems while removing coal from a different
panel a year ago.
Area residents have been asking many questions about their water
supplies after the problems were discovered at the stream, which feeds
into Enlow Fork, Carter said.
“We need not to get hearsay,” he said. “We need to know who to call.”
Joel Koricich, a supervisor at the DEP district office in California,
said mining must be planned and conducted to prevent problems along
streams with well-defined banks and a water flow all year.
To date, 97 miles of streams in Washington and Greene counties have
been undermined by longwall operations, Koricich said. Six of those
that encountered problems are in various stages of being repaired while
four others are still being monitored, he said.
The mining industry has been improving the technology it uses to repair
the streams they damage, DEP spokeswoman Helen Humphreys said.
“We understand it better,” Humphreys said. “There is less tolerance for
poor environmental measures.”
Coalfield residents with questions about subsidence are urged to call
the district mining office at 724-769-1100.