Agency offers states grants for digitized mine maps
Area miners might be a little safer when headed underground after the U.S. Department of Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) announced $3.9 million in funding for 13 states, including Pennsylvania, to develop an electronic system for digitizing underground maps for abandoned mines. West Virginia will receive $1.2 million and Pennsylvania and Kentucky each will receive $1 million in grants for the project, the lion’s share of the funding, with the remaining money distributed through the other 11 states.
And, according to Joe Sbaffoni, director of the state’s Bureau of Deep Mine Safety, Pennsylvania was awarded a larger chunk of the funds because the state has been heavily mined and still has a large amount of active mining.
He said that the new system will increase overall mine safety and prevent events like the July 2002 Quecreek mine accident in Somerset County from occurring. The Quecreek mine operator had an inaccurate map of a nearby underground mine, and rushing water from the abandoned shaft enveloped nine miners for three days before their dramatic rescue.
“After Quecreek, we implemented a lot of internal procedures for safety,” Sbaffoni said. “If we don’t feel comfortable with the maps, then additional requirements like test drilling at a new site could also be required.”
Sbaffoni said that maps of underground mines are spread all across the state and that after several mine symposiums, the mining agencies decided that to curtail further accidents, the maps needed to be available in electronic format with overall easier access.
The maps also might be useful in tracking underground mine pools, which threaten to pollute area water sources with acid drainage.
According to a study conducted by West Virginia University’s Hydrology Research Center for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about 1,200 abandoned mines exist in the Pittsburgh coal basin, the largest bituminous coal seam in North America. About 55 percent of the coal has been mined from the seam, resulting in 4,990 square miles of abandoned underground mines, 1,940 square miles of which are flooded.
Many of the mines are classified as free draining, and the outflow from such mines is substantial. Researchers suggest that 27.2 billion gallons are discharged annually, about 50,000 gallons per minute, and that the water is laden with iron and aluminum, both potentially harmful to the Monongahela River environment. Only about 37 percent of the water being discharged is treated.
That figure should rise, however, when the Shannopin treatment facility is completed early next year in Greene County.
The $7 million project, funded mostly by the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PENNVEST), will treat and pump acid water from the mine, which was abandoned in 1993 after Shannopin Coal Co. went bankrupt. The water eventually will be used for the cooling system at the proposed Longview power plant in Monongalia County, W.Va., which will require about 7,000 gallons per minute.
The treatment plant, operated by the Dana Mining Co. of West Virginia, initially will treat and pump 3,900 gallons of water a minute out of the Steele shaft and into Dunkard Creek.
At a public meeting to discuss the mine pools in November, researchers suggested that the digitization of abandoned mine maps could help curtail further degradation to the area environment.
MSHA distributed public service announcements in August requesting copies of old mine maps from residents in mining areas. MSHA released no timetable for the new mapping system.