The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-03-12
OHIO POLLUTION

THE task of forestaling the drainage Of millions
- of tons of dangerous acid into the streams of
the Ohio River basin has been intrusted to the
wPA administrators of Pennsylvania Ohio. Ken
lucky and West Virginia
Approval by Controller General McCarl of a
$14e4286 item for sealing abandoned coal mines in
Pennsylvania rounds out the program. Approval
of $329,156 for the same work in Ohio s39o030 for
Kentucky and 1851, 1886 for West Virginia had pre-
viously been given. Work in localities has
been under way for month
Shutting off the flow of some 100000 tons of
sulphuric acid year from abandoned coal mines is
considered of WPAs most important projects
number of mines were sealed under CWA and
many others under FERA.
Coming in dribbles and rivulets from thou
sands of coal mines which honeycomb the Appa-
lachians this acid strips the creeks of all fish lfe
makes them unfit for drinking or stock watering;
plays havoc with plumbing, water works and indus
trial plants; cripples government dams, boats and
dredges with corrosion. It causes damage estimated
at $10,O0o000 year. Effects of the acid have been
felt by several million taxpayers
HEALTH officials the Bureau of Mines and Army
engineers have worried long time over the
problem. They have seen the damage mount yearly
and they haven't until recently been able to hep it.
Army engineers made study of the situation in
1914-15 and again in 1925. They found that while
some pollution from sewage and industrial
waste by far the greatest damage was being done
by the acid drainage from coal Mines
About 70 per cent OF this drainage, they said, was
from abandoned mines They recommended state
legislation looking to the sealing of abandoned mines
and the treatment of drainage from active mines.
The recommendation never was acted upon.
Acid is created in mines by the action of air on
iron pyrites present in large quantities in the ore
materials of nearly all bitumNous mines The iron
suphate thus formed is taken up in solution by
water seeping in from the surface and is then con-
verified into suphuric acid The quantity of this water
Is SO great that in most active mines pumps have
to be kept going. In abandoned mines, this water
with its burden Of acid accumulaSes until it over
flows at the mine entrance.
Fishing is lost art in hundreds of these noun
tain streams, for neither aquatic nor vegetable life
survives the acid Over period of year, the
10000 to $4,000 abandoned workings throughout the
four-state area were estimated to be dumping close
ualy into the Ohio.
T>ENDERS at government locks along these rivers
have found the metal parts of their gates wearing
out in half the time they normally should. Steam
boat shippers have found the life of their plates and
boilers cut from Is to 71A years Railroads and in
dustral plants spend $loooooo year replacing cor
roded equipment. Public water works have to buy al
most twice much soda ash and other purifiers as
needed for the waters of other localities Re-
placement of metal cuverts buks disproportionatey
in the budgets of highway departments in the four
states.
Thousands Of mines have been so long abandoned
that they appear on no map Many of them are in
remote hollows and hsides. The sealing operation is
relatively simple.
All of the states except Kentucky resumed mine
sealing work under FERA. WPA will carry the work
much farther.