|
|
Donate Your Time, Talent or Treasures
|
|
Kyra Norton
Student at Bloomsburg University
|
Rayne Brown
Student at Luzerne Co. Community College
|
|
|
AMD Sampling for O&M of Treatment Systems
|
|
Record Sampling Data @
Monitoring Assistance @
|
|
Mine Subsidence Insurance
|
|
|  |
|
PA man survives 500-foot fall into strip mine
|
|
Apr 25, 09:10 PM EDT
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM - Associated Press Writer
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- A man survived a 500-foot fall into a strip mine Friday, astounding rescuers who spent hours on a risky descent into the abyss to bring him back out.
Police said Nathan Bowman was trespassing on coal company property around 1 a.m. Friday when he slipped and fell into the Springdale Pit, an inactive mine about 700 feet deep, 3,000 feet long and 1,500 feet wide.
Bowman tumbled down a jagged slope and then free-fell several hundred feet, his descent broken by a rock ledge not far from the bottom of the pit, said Coaldale Police Chief Timothy Delaney, who helped direct the rescue effort.
"If you look at that drop, there was no way somebody could survive that," Delaney said.
Bowman, 23, of Tamaqua, was in serious condition Friday night at St. Luke's Hospital in Bethlehem. The extent and nature of his injuries was not clear, although rescuer John Fowler said it appeared he suffered a number of fractures.
Bowman and a friend were walking around the pit when he went over the side. The friend called 911, and Coaldale police and firefighters began a frantic search, according to Delaney.
State police got into the act several hours later, using a helicopter, floodlights and thermal imaging to try to pinpoint Bowman's location in the pit, about 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
"It got really, really dangerous," Delaney said. "My guys were fantastic; they were heroes, risking their lives in total darkness."
The search was called off at daybreak. Shortly thereafter, Delaney went to the offices of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co., which owns the Springdale Pit, to notify officials of the situation.
"I said, 'Let's take a ride over there and show me where it occurred,'" said Fowler, 40, a project manager at the company.
Their luck was better this time.
"Within about three minutes, we found him," Fowler said. "I thought I could hear a muffled call for help. We yelled to him and asked him where he was, and he said he thought he was on a ledge."
Fowler, who moonlights as a state firefighter instructor, and a Coaldale police sergeant scouted a relatively safe route to Bowman and stayed with him until more help arrived.
Two firefighters rappelled down to the ledge, loaded Bowman onto a basket and tied themselves to it. Then all three were painstakingly hoisted up.
Bowman was lucid when he arrived at the top of the pit late Friday morning, wanting his harness loosened, asking that someone call his brother and expressing fear about riding in a medical helicopter, said Sarah Curran Smith, a vice president at Lehigh Coal.
Bowman's survival is "pretty unbelievable," she said. "I think the universe has bigger plans for Nathan. I hope he realizes that."
Bowman faces charges including defiant trespass, according to Delaney.
|
Posted by admin on Monday, 28 April 2008 (10:44:38) EDT (1140 reads)
(Read More... | Score: 0)
|
|
|
Resources: Mine Scarred Lands Initiative Online Resource Guide is now Available
|
|
NEW! Mine-Scarred Lands Initiative Online Tool Kit
Please visit the MSL Initiative Tool Kit at: http://www.epa.gov/aml/revital/msl/index.htm
This Web site shares the experiences and lessons from six demonstration projects of the Brownfields Federal Partnership Mine-Scarred Lands Initiative. It features helpful tools and links to other mine revitalization resources. The
Tool Kit provides information on:
• Creating a Vision for Revitalization
• Building Project Teams
• Obtaining External Support
• Developing a Revitalization Plan
• Technical Considerations
• Legal Considerations
• Funding Revitalization Projects
|
Some Pennsylvania homeowners can check a new state Web site to see whether their houses are situated above or near an abandoned mine.
Tom Rathbun from the state Department of Environmental Protection says it can help folks determine if they want to purchase mine subsidence insurance.
While the www.paMSI.org website only has information on areas in Western Pennsylvania, Rathbun says officials are working to scan maps from locations east of the Susquehanna River into the system.
Coal has been mined underground for about 250 years and more than a million Pennsylvania homes sit on or near abandoned mines.
Active underground mining is ongoing in 43 of the state's 67 counties.
Source:
Gene Starr
News Director
WPPA-AM/WAVT-FM
P.O. Box 540
Pottsville, PA 17901
(W) 570-622-4440
(F) 570-622-2822
gstarr@pbcradio.com
|
|
Pennsylvania Awarded $21.2 Million to Reclaim Dangerous Abandoned Mine Lands
|
|
(WASHINGTON) - Interior Secretary Gale Norton today announced that the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining has awarded Pennsylvania a grant of $21.2 million to help reclaim dangerous abandoned mine lands.
The Office of Surface Mining estimated last year that in Pennsylvania almost $1.04 billion worth of high-priority problems remain and more than 1,649,959 Pennsylvanians are living less than a mile from a dangerous abandoned mine site. Thousands more live every day with the environmental impacts of abandoned, un-reclaimed coal mines.
The Abandoned Mine Land program, which provides grants to states to reclaim abandoned mine sites, was scheduled to expire September 30.
Congress extended the program through June 30. "The Abandoned Mine Land program has made thousands of Americans living in the coalfields safer, but the job is not finished," said Norton. "Even after 25 years of extraordinary national effort, we still have almost $3 billion worth of high-priority hazards to health and safety waiting to be cleaned up. "
"Our Administration remains committed to reauthorizing AML fee collection authority," said Norton. "We are working with Congress now to bring reform to the AML program, speed up the elimination of high priority health and safety abandoned coal mines and to provide for the expedited payment of unappropriated balances to certified States and Tribes."
High-priority AML problems threaten public health and safety and could cause substantial physical harm to persons or property. They include clogged streams and stream lands, dangerous highwalls, impoundments, piles, embankments and slides, hazardous or explosive gases, hazardous water bodies, underground mine fires, surface burning, portals and vertical openings, subsidence and polluted drinking water.
The Office of Surface Mining (OSM) collects fees on current coal mining to fund reclamation of coal mine sites abandoned before 1977.
"The grants we've just awarded will give Pennsylvania's reclamation program some of what it needs to continue working on this enormous problem," said Norton. "Our administration is working to better protect the people of Pennsylvania and eliminate these serious dangers decades sooner."
The AML Program award will provide the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) funding for the following AML
activities:
Non-Emergency Administrative Costs ($2,768,291); Non-Emergency Non-Water Supply Project Costs ($13,841,420); Non-Emergency Water Supply Project Costs ($1,449, 070); Appalachian Clean Stream Initiative Costs ($874,180); and Ten Percent Set-Aside Acid Mine Drainage Program Costs ($2,360,697).
Pennsylvania's FY 2005 grant performance period is January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2007, with the utilization of 111 full time equivalents.
-OSM-
High resolution photos of AML problems are available online at www.osmre.gov.
|
Posted by admin on Tuesday, 29 March 2005 (15:20:27) EST (629 reads)
(Read More... | Score: 0)
|
|
| |
|
Postal Address...
|
EPCAMR Office
101 South Main Street
Ashley, PA 18706
Phone: (570) 371-3522
Directions
|
|
OSM / VISTA Watershed Development Coordinator
|
Wren Dugan
(570) 371-3522
wdugan@epcamr.org
|
|
Please enter "EPCAMR" as your charity.
|
Check out our Western PA Counterpart!!
|
|
|
|
or 
feeds
