Kevin Springob

The extraction of coal and precious metals has greatly benefited the development of the United States for over one hundred years. Several states are now realizing the hidden environmental costs of mining operations. Mining practices have created new environmental problems that threaten terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems throughout the United States. Streams are experiencing severe alterations in water quality due to a by-product of mining, known as acid drainage.

Acid drainage is water containing high concentrations of acidity, manganese, iron, and aluminum. Three main sources of acid drainage are underground mine tunnels, refuse from coal cleaning processes, and mine tailings (http://www.osmre.gov/acsihome.htm.). The process of mining exposes rocky materials that oftentimes contain large amounts of sulfides, which are crystalline substances containing sulfur combined with metals or semi-metals, but no oxygen. The most common forms of sulfides associated with mine sites are pyrite and marcasite. Mining processes expose sulfides to the air, resulting in chemical reactions that release toxic levels of heavy metal and hydrogen ions (http://www.mines.edu). The hydrogen ions directly increase the acidity of water flowing over the mine sites. In many cases, stream water comes into direct contact with the mine sites, where the water collects and transports the ions downstream. In other cases precipitation runoff will transport the ions into adjacent streams or water sources. The increase in hydrogen ions lowers the pH, which causes more heavy metal ions to become soluble and capable of being absorbed into the water. The decrease in pH also causes soluble iron ions to precipitate out of solution, causing a reddish-orange sediment that is characteristic of affected streams (http://www.mines.edu).

The effect of acid drainage on local streams varies with the size of the stream and the total pollution load put on the stream (http://ctcnet.net/scrip/). When acid drainage enters water systems, the toxic metals and hydrogen ions begin to alter the biological communities. Aquatic plants and animals begin to die from the increased acidity and the toxic metal ions. Many game species including brook trout, cannot survive below a pH of 5.5. In extreme cases where acid drainage causes the stream to reach a pH of 2, which usually leads to streams that are biologically dead.

The Appalachian region has a long history of mining and acid drainage has severely affected many streams in the region. Restoration efforts have traditionally been isolated to local interest groups or state programs, which often lacked the necessary resources to effectively manage the problem. In 1994, The Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative (ACSI) was created under the government Office of Surface Mining. ACSI started out as a broad-based program to eliminate acid drainage from abandoned coal mines. Over the past four years it has become more focused, with an expanded effort to include as many of the parties, both private and governmental, and to uphold the underlying belief that a more integrated management approach will benefit not only the streams but also the residents and all agencies involved.

ACSI has been designed to address the issue of preventing acid drainage and reversing the deadly effects that have already occurred. "The goal of the Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative is to provide leadership and to facilitate the efforts of states, local governments, industry, and citizens to clean up streams polluted by acid mine drainage" (http://www.osmre.gov/acsihome.htm). ACSI strives to take a new direction that includes a grassroots philosophy and an integrated approach. Prior to the creation of ACSI, programs under the Office of Surface Mining did not use an integrated approach for managing restoration projects. ACSI is a coordinated effort that takes an outcome-oriented approach focusing on a host of new talent and resources to solve a common problem.

A key component of the ACSI is the Statement of Mutual Intent. The document was designed on the principle that governmental, industrial, and public parties concerned with improving and restoring water quality will pool their resources to accomplish the common goal. An important statement objective was to provide a forum for the purpose of transferring technologies and other information about improving, restoring, and preventing further harm to watersheds (http://www.osmre.gov/acsihome.htm). Since February 1995, the Statement of Mutual Intent has added over one hundred signatures from industry leaders, local watershed groups, state and federal agencies (Taitt). An integrated approach allows for the accomplishment of goals that may have been unattainable for any individual organization or community. Citizen input and interests are always an integral part of the restoration process. Many local communities rely on the streams for economic values such as tourism and fishing.

Source of Funds

Funding for Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative projects comes from several different sources. Each year the government will allocate a set amount of funding directly to the ACSI. In 1998 the government allocated $5,000,000 to the ACSI for use on restoration efforts (Taitt). Other sources of funding include private foundations and other governmental agencies, both federal and state. The Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative also needs to have local programs that can organize funds and receive recognition and financial support from state governments (Taitt). In most cases the Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative requires local groups to match funds provided by the ACSI in a one-to-one ratio.

When the ACSI was first established, site selection was focused on smaller projects that were easy to restore. Projects were chosen that usually involved well-known watershed groups, which helped to gain public recognition of the ACSI. Currently, site selection is almost exclusively done by individual states and not by the ACSI. Individual states establish a list of projects through a formula of historic coal production or by the request of local watershed groups. To qualify for funding, the cause of the polluted stream must be to acid drainage from mining operations. When the cause of the pollution has been verified as being a mining site, funds are allocated and a treatment plan is devised.

The preferable site of treatment is the mine itself. Legal responsibility has been imposed on currently operating mines to assure that the problem is solved prior to when the water leaves the mine. Active mines are required to chemically treat the water before it leaves their site. Unfortunately these mines are usually not adequately treating the water or are subject to accidental overflow spills of highly polluted water. Although the Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative is a government-based program, it does not enforce the regulation of penalties or fines for violations incurred by mining companies. Several mining companies have voluntarily signed the Statement of Mutual Intent and are working with the ACSI and local watershed groups to minimize their degradation of the environment.

The ACSI treats acid drainage by using a variety of practices. Each stream has unique characteristics that require a restoration program specific to the location. The ACSI works with local groups to determine which forms of treatment are both affordable and viable solutions for the individual project. Although the focus is oftentimes on treating individual streams the preferred practice of the ACSI is to focus on entire watersheds. Treatment methods of acid drainage can be categorized as either active or passive.

Active Treatment

Active treatment for acid drainage requires constant maintenance and application of chemicals or neutralizing materials. The most common method of active treatment is liming, which involves adding hydrated lime directly to effected water. Hydrated lime is composed of calcium carbonate, which will quickly neutralize hydrogen ions and raise the water to a pH of 7, which is neutral. Adding hydrated lime also decreases iron and aluminum to nontoxic levels. Liming is an expensive process and it is considered a temporary measure because the acid drainage problem has not been permanently eliminated (http://www.osmre.gov/acsihome.htm). For liming to be an effective practice, a dosing regime must be established and maintained indefinitely. This method is only considered a temporary fix until another solution can be implemented.

Passive treatment involves the construction of a treatment system that is more permanent and requires little or no maintenance. Passive control measures include limestone rock channels, alkaline recharge of ground water and diversion of drainage through natural or artificial wetlands (http://www.osmre.gov/acsihome.htm). Limestone rock channels allow water to flow through channels that perform the same function as liming. The water passes through the channels and in the process the pH is raised.

The use of wetlands has gained wide acceptance in recent years. Water from the mines is diverted to wetlands that act as natural filters for the acid drainage. Wetlands have organic-rich substrates which exchange dissolved metals. This exchange occurs between the dissolved metals and abundant humic and fulvic acids contained within the substrate (Smith 1997). Organic matter and microbes transform the soluble metals into insoluble form, which are not a threat to aquatic species. The number of free hydrogen ions is also reduced in wetland treated water. The water eventually returns to the stream virtually free of toxins.

For abandoned mines that have extremely high concentrations of acid drainage, filling or capping the tunnels may be the best option. This method is designed to bury the material that has the potential for oxidization into sulfuric acid. The major drawback is the expense of the process and the inconsistency of the results. In some cases the sealing of mines may not be thorough enough and leaking of material may occur, causing a rush of new toxins into the stream. A promising fill material is the alkaline waste products from co-generation power plants. The alkaline material can fill the underground mines and neutralize further acid drainage.

Measuring Success

Evaluation of success for the ACSI is still under development. The question of how to measure success has not been explicitly determined (Taitt). The major method of evaluation is measuring the pounds of acid removed at the source for particular sites. Another measure of success is to use the drinking water standards established by the Environmental Protection Agency. The ACSI also does extensive tests for aluminum, iron, magnesium, and pH. Monitoring and evaluation efforts are limited by a lack of funds. The ultimate goal of the program will be to observe sites closely for the first two to three years and then use gauging stations to continue monitoring the streams (Taitt). The ACSI is trying to work with the United States Geologic Survey (USGS) to share the use of monitoring stations. The hindrance to this plan is that the locations of USGS monitoring stations aren't always compatible with the needs of the ACSI. Future monitoring stations may be planned and built to facilitate the needs of both organizations.

Analysis and Summary

The Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative is not a complete restoration program in and of itself. The focus of the program and evaluative efforts is based on the return of desirable game fish such as brook trout. Restoration efforts for game fish will ultimately benefit other aquatic animals and plants. Streams throughout the Appalachia region are experiencing a gradual return of game fish. Recovery of affected streams is a slow process requiring the reestablishment of the biological foundation. The food web reestablishes itself, providing invertebrates and other nutrition sources for game fish.

The ACSI provides a crucial first step towards restoration with an underlying collaborative philosophy of uniting individual groups together based on their common goal. The role of facilitator allows for a combined effort that eliminates redundancy between agencies and organizations, while providing a stronger knowledge and economic base. The innovative approach that this program has adopted provides an example to other agencies and interest groups for how to accomplish goals that may have previously seemed unattainable.

 References

 1. The Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative http://www.osmre.gov/acsihome.htm, 4/23/1998

2. Acid Mine Drainage http://www.mines.edu/fs_home/jhoran/ch126/introduc.htm, 4/24/1998

3. Stoneycreek Conemaugh River Improvement Project, http://ctcnet.net/scrip/, 5/13/1998

4. Constructed Wetlands for Treating Acid Mine Drainage, Kathryn Smith, 1997, http://www.soils.umn.edu:8003/h5015/97papers/smith.html

5. Personal communication, James Taitt, OSM-ARCC, Three Parkway Center, Pittsburgh, PA, 15220

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