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Group works to rehabilitate Avondale breaker site and educate youth on mining

August 9, 2009

Group works to rehabilitate Avondale breaker site

ASHLEY – As its 140th anniversary approaches, the nation’s deadliest mining disaster is also one of its most hidden, but a local nonprofit group is hoping to change that on a shoestring budget.

On Sept. 6, 1869, a fire at the Avondale breaker in Plymouth Township trapped 110 men and boys underground and beyond the reach of rescuers, leaving them all to suffocate.

All that remains of the site is a filled entrance, a small hole that pumps out cold air, the beginnings of a flowered memorial and, nearby, graffiti-covered trusses to state Route 11.

Or at least they were graffiti-covered until the Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation focused on the site. In recent weeks, Executive Director Robert Hughes and two college interns, Kyra Norton and Shawn Jones, have removed trash and painted the trusses with graffiti-resistant paint donated by the state Department of Transportation.

Now, Hughes is attempting to scratch together the funds it would take to rehabilitate the site, which is owned by the local mine lands rehabilitator Earth Conservancy. He’s working with a local vocational-technical school to fashion a grate over the hole that will secure it, but also allow the naturally cool air to refresh the site. There are plans for shrubs, picnic tables, benches, several raised flowerbeds and two informational kiosks to make the site a trailhead on the Susquehanna Warrior Trail, which passes close by.

Much more than reclamation, however, are EPCAMR’s efforts at public education. From a pond near its headquarters at the Earth Conservancy building in Ashley, the nonprofit collects buckets of iron oxide from acid-mine drainage, dries it and turns into creative and educational crafts that it distributes to schools and uses during field trips at grade schools.

Beyond that, Hughes and the interns are developing a “comedic skit” for younger grades that’s based on characters from a coloring book the nonprofit created years ago. Commissioning costumes from a local maker for characters and developing a plotline, the skit will discuss mining’s problematic legacy and potential solutions using, copyrighted superheroes and villains such as the sinister-looking mine entrance named “Coalface.”

“They’re little sponges at that age,” said Norton, an undergraduate at Bloomsburg University. With Plaster of Paris and packets of iron oxide, Hughes and the interns make drainage-tinged chalk and tie-dyed T-shirts while teaching students the issues with and potential uses for acid mine-drainage. “You get different colors when you bake it at different temperatures,” Jones said.

The group sells its iron oxide for $5 per ounce and $2 per box of chalk. Hughes said he’s been contacted by various schools, camps and watershed organizations in at least eight states.

Jones got indoctrinated about the benefits of reclamation as a high school student. A Wilkes-Barre native, he used to ride his bicycle past the stripping pits and bore holes with little knowledge of their significance until Hughes visited his class in 11th grade. “He took me on a tour in my 11th-grade year, and I was interested in it from there on. That’s actually how I picked out my major,” said the land-rehabilitation and GIS major at Montana State University. “I wanted to do some reclamation work.”

He said water is so scarce and valued in western America that such mine-drainage degradation would be immediately fixed. Here, though, “We’re just city slickers. When I go fishing with (friends), they just throw all their crap in the river. … They just have that mentality that it’s been here all their lives, and there’s just nothing they can do about it.”

That’s where EPCAMR gets involved, attempting to change that outlook from a young age. Both Jones and Norton said education is more important than actual remediation. “I think you have to educate the public because they are crucial,” Norton said. “I think that’s why it’s important to reach our younger generations now about recycling. Hopefully, they’ll retain it.”

To help out

EPCAMR is looking for volunteers to help with cleanups at five locations:

• Avondale Mine Memorial site in Plymouth Township

• Canal Street Floodplain Area in West Nanticoke

• Pennsylvania Avenue and Dana Street in Wilkes-Barre

• Illegal dump sites on Curry Hill and Smith Row in Plymouth Township

• Hick’s Creek illegal roadside dump along Slocum Street in Exeter

Work would be in four-hour shifts; for more details go to: orangewaternetwork.org.

To volunteer, call 570-371-3522 or search for the group on Facebook.com.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

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