Abandoned Mine Drainage - Water Pollution

[wadejc85]

Yesterday, I was doing some field work and came across this "beautiful" creek. I don't know how many people know about abandoned mine drainage/acid mind drainage (AMD), but it's a pretty bad source of pollution to many streams.

Yes, the creek is actually orange. This stream is in West/Central Pennsylvania.

I also saw a bear, which made my day.

 

[Berlepsch]

Where I grew up, our river suddently looked the same after a few weeks of strong rain. Our local mining company wanted to save money and pumped out the water from the shaft only during night hours to use cheap electricity. Unfortunately that meant that the clearing pools for neutralizing the acid overflowed, dumping the water from the mine directrly into the river.

Luckily that the yellow rust layer lasted only a few years before it finally dissolved.

 

[wadejc85]

That's crazy! If I were a local to that river, I'd be very mad! I'm guessing the agency I work for would require a permit to do that, which is good.

It's good to hear the river eventually cleared up. Unfortunately, I don't see this or any of the other AMD streams in Pennsylvania clearing up soon. 'Tis quite sad.

 

[0098386]

I can't remember where but I'm sure we have a river thats always like that around here. I think it's on the moors, but the water there is either black or orange.

And that's a stream to you , that's as big as they get around here! That said we are on the highest point around so rivers don't have time to get big.

 

[Aeolius]

Most of the rivers and lakes look like that, around here after a rain. North Carolina clay is orange, so it makes the water orange.

 

[Sun Baked]

Isn't there a copper mine, that has a huge polluted lake? Like really really big and deep, probably requiring years to pump out.

 

[wadejc85]

I can't remember where but I'm sure we have a river thats always like that around here. I think it's on the moors, but the water there is either black or orange.

And that's a stream to you , that's as big as they get around here! That said we are on the highest point around so rivers don't have time to get big.

Most of the rivers and lakes look like that, around here after a rain. North Carolina clay is orange, so it makes the water orange.

I deal with a lot of rivers/creeks/streams, so I mostly call everything a stream. It's name is Red Moshannon Creek (nicknamed Red Mo) and it gets it's nickname from AMD impacts. From what I've heard from my co-workers (agh! hearsay!), the entire length of the creek is polluted from AMD and it can't sustain any fish.. so sad.

The Susquehanna River beside my office building is around a mile wide with flows currently in the 25,000 cubic feet per second range. That's around 11,200,000 gallons per minute, or 710 cubic meters per second!

Then again, we're "lower" so we get the bigger flows.

 

[wadejc85]

Isn't there a copper mine, that has a huge polluted lake? Like really really big and deep, probably requiring years to pump out.

I'm not sure of any in Pennsylvania, but then again, I mostly deal with the Susquehanna River Basin. Where were you thinking? I'll see what I can do to pull up information!