Architect to be Hired for Creek Plant

Will treat Deckers’ acid mine pollution

Morgantown Dominion Post
2 May 2011
By David Beard

The Deckers Creek acid mine drainage cleanup project will soon take another step forward.

The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is preparing a Request For Qualifications to hire an architectural/geotechnical firm to consult for its proposed Richard Mine treatment plant, said Martin Christ, water remediation director for Friends of Deckers Creek (FODC).

Plant construction should begin in 2015, he said, and be finished by 2016.

The defunct Richard Mine — closed in 1953 — covers about 3 square miles, with all but a small portion of it running northeast of Deckers Creek and W.Va. 7 from Richard, according to a FODC map.

The abandoned mine dumps 300,000 gallons of acid mine drainage — including 1,000 pounds of metals and more than 1 ton of acidity into Deckers Creek every day, said FODC Director Sarah Veselka. The drainage kills aquatic life in the creek’s lower six miles and the metals turn it red-orange all the way through Morgantown to its mouth at the Monongahela River.

FODC has been working to clean up Richard Mine for 15 years, she said.

Standing at the creek’s edge at a point in Richard, it’s possible to see where the mine drains from a culvert and down a manmade trough into the creek. Christ said that in the 1990s, the Department of Environmental Protection Abandoned Mine Lands office worked on the drainage mine, opened and drained it and put in pipes so water wouldn’t pile up.

In the late 1990s, Christ said, the NRCS decided to put together a cleanup plan for the whole creek. It completed the plan in 2000, and in 2002 the DEP signed on. They waited until 2006 to tackle the mine — the toughest part of the project.

Veselka sketched a timeline of the plant plan:

In 2002, the NRCS committed $4.8 million to treat acid discharges in the Deckers Creek watershed.

In 2002, the DEP committed $4.8 million in matching funds, including $2.1 million specifically to clean up the Richard mine.

In 2004 and following years, Sen. Robert C. Byrd appropriated funding for NRCS to realize the plan formalized in 2002.

The NRCS has a design and funds to build the treatment plant, but cannot, by law, pay for operations and maintenance.

In 2009, FODC succeeded in partnering with the DEP, which agreed to provide 80 percent of the operations and maintenance funds for 20 years. The city of Morgantown and Monongalia County agreed to be the local sponsors for the remaining 20 percent.

DEP spokeswoman Kathy Cosco said that “at this point, it’s difficult to pin down the costs because the final treatment design has not been completed.”

Rough estimates by DEP staff put the cost around $400,000 a year, she said, which would mean the DEP would contribute about $6.4 million during the 20-year period and the local sponsors would contribute about $1.6 million during the same time period.

These aren’t final numbers, she said. “Things such as inflation and potential increases in electricity costs could make the costs go up — or conversely, efficiencies in the plant design could possibly reduce the costs.”

Morgantown Director of Finance J.R. Sabatelli echoed Cosco’s thoughts. The city and county inked the agreement in March 2010, he said, but with no plant built there’s been no financial commitment. That will be spelled out in a future project agreement.

According to his most recent letter from the NRCS, the NRCS expects operations to begin around January 2017.

A plant site hasn’t been selected, Christ said. The hired consultant will help determine that. It will locate the best place to drill into the mine to extract a sufficient flow of water to treat. Pumping out too much or too little could create more problems.

The site will require ponds for the solids to settle out. If the area is big enough, they could use long earthen ponds. On a smaller pad, they would build vertical tanks.

The ultimate benefits, Christ said, beyond a clean creek, are revived fishing in the Sabraton area and a possible increase in property values for lots along the affected segment of the creek. Maybe, down the road, it could even stimulate new business — creekside restaurants, outdoor recreation shops and more.

Christ provided a brief history of the mine. It was opened in 1936 as Industrial Collieries Corp. No. 21 Mine. (References to Industrial Collieries show it was a Bethlehem Steel subsidiary, and successor to Bethlehem Mines Corp., which dissolved in 1936 and reformed as Industrial Collieries.)

Traveling through Richard, you can still see the original, identically shaped coal camp houses. The tire store once served as the mine headquarters, then as a school. The janitorial supply store was once the company store.

The mine closed in 1953.