Document ID: EPA-HQ-RCRA-2008-0329-0040
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2009-01-02T05:00Z

http://www.arippa.org/coalrefuse.asp

Coal Refuse

 

 

Nanty Glo East waste pile

Photo courtesy of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection

 

What is coal refuse?

Coal refuse is the low BTU-value waste material remaining from the coal
mining process that was simply discarded by mining companies for more
than 150 years - from the time mining first began in Pennsylvania in the
early 1800s through the late 1970s.

Coal refuse consists primarily of rock, with some attached carbon
material that was unable to be separated from the rock. This material
was heaped in refuse piles all through Pennsylvania's coal regions until
laws were enacted in the late 1970s that, for the first time, required
the coal companies to reclaim the sites that they mined. By the time
that these laws were enacted, upwards of 2.4 billion tons of coal refuse
had been discarded and abandoned in Pennsylvania.

No one is legally responsible to reclaim the coal refuse that was
discarded before the enactment of the state and federal laws in the
1970s.

Until the commercial development of the circulating fluidized bed
boiler, there was no use for this low BTU-value material. Now this
material can be put to good use in the production of clean energy.

Since the late 1980s, Pennsylvania's waste coal plants have removed over
100 million tons of polluting coal refuse from the environment and have
reclaimed over 3,800 acres of abandoned mine lands at no cost to
taxpayers.

What does a coal refuse pile look like?

The Nanty Glo East pile is located along Route 271 in Cambria County,
entering Nanty Glo from the South. The pile is one of three abandoned
refuse piles located along the South Branch of the Blacklick Creek in
Cambria County, Pennsylvania.

The other two piles, Revloc and Nanty Glo West, currently are being
reclaimed by Ebensburg Power Company, resulting in dramatic improvements
to the water quality of the South Branch of the Blacklick Creek, which
is a tributary to the Susquehanna River.

Ebensburg Power Company has plans to reclaim the Nanty Glo East pile,
which contains about 2.5 million tons of refuse over a 35 acre site and
was deposited between 1917 and 1945. When reclamation of Nanty Glo East
is completed, Ebensburg will have removed the three largest sources of
acid mine runoff into the South Branch.