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By BRAD BRANAN; Times Leader Staff Writer
Sunday, October 15, 1995 Page: 1B
To the right of the Cross-Valley Expressway’s northbound lane, near
Wilkes-Barre Exit 2, is a valley institution: A culm bank.
Like other culm banks, it serves as a reminder of the area’s rich coal
history.
But this bank in Plains Township will be gone by the year 2005. Northampton
Generating Co., near Allentown, will remove it after it finishes removing
banks in Jenkins and Hanover townships.
Once considered coal waste, culm is now the most popular form of anthracite
coal. Co-generation plants are turning culm into steam-based electricity.
And the plants are going through it quickly enough that some believe a
regular feature on our landscape could soon disappear.
“The culm banks are disappearing fast,” said Vance Packard, 53, director of
the Anthracite Museum Complex at Eckley Miners’ Village. “I would guess by the
end of the century, there won’t be any left.”
Many people are excited to see them go. They say the culm banks are ugly
and environmentally hazardous. But historians like Packard say the area could
be losing an important tie to its past.
Joe Martarano, fuels and mining manager with Continental Energy Associates,
Ltd., said the interest in culm started in the early 1980s, when co-generation
plants started popping up. They have had a strong impact on coal production.
Total anthracite production reached an all-time low of just under 3 million
tons in 1983, according to the Department of Environmental Protection. But by
1994, production was up to nearly 8 million tons.
The co-generation plants accounted for 5.5 million tons of the production.
Martarano said there’s a simple reason for the increase. Culm removal costs
a fraction of what either surface or underground mining costs, he said.
Continental and several other Hazleton area co-generation plants, which
sell electricity to power companies, have significantly reduced the amount of
culm in the area, Martarano and Packard say.
But as the culm banks go, Packard is worried that an important piece of the
area’s identity is going with it.
“Almost everything in Wilkes Barre and Scranton can be tied back to
anthracite. Our ancestors worked in the mines,” he said. “The tangible signs
of history are important. I don’t know if they are necessary for existence,
but I think they are.”
Robert Janosov, professor of history at Luzerne County Community College,
also says the banks are an important part of area history. He said the banks
serve as a reminder of how coal companies ripped apart the valley’s natural
beauty.
“It would be like Bucks County if it was not for the anthracite,” he said.
Culm banks are one of the few visible reminders of coal history, he noted,
because not many coal breakers are left.
Packard wants to hold on to that history. “I’ve thought about asking one of
the companies around here if we could buy a culm bank and keep it here at
Eckley.”
But Stephen Barrouk, president of Greater Wilkes-Barre Partnership, wants
to see that history and the culm banks buried. “The culm is a reminder of our
past that isn’t necessarily good,” he said. “It’s a reminder of environmental
degradation.”
The banks are also environmentally hazardous, said Mike Dziak, director of
Earth Conservancy, which has millions of tons of culm on 17,000 acres of
former Blue Coal Co. Land. The banks generate acid mine water that is running
into the ground water, he said.
A more common complaint about culm banks is how they look. “We have an
absolutely beautiful landscape in the Wyoming Valley, a panoramic view,” said
Barrouk. “It’s a distraction to that view.”
He said outsiders are quick to notice. “We bring a lot of people into the
area, and a lot of them ask, `What are those big black things,’ ” Barrouk
said.
Alan Bradley is building a new house next to the culm bank being removed in
Jenkins Township. He said his wife liked everything about the house and the
neighborhood. Except the culm bank.
But she said everything was fine when he told her it was being removed. “We
think it’s great. Everything is right on schedule,” he said.
TIMES LEADER/RICHARD SABATURA
Culm banks like this one along the Cross-Valley Expressway were once
considered waste piles. But co-generation plants have turned culm into the
most popular form of anthracite coal. Of the nearly 8 million tons of
anthracite produced in 1994, 5.5 million was culm. Some believe culm banks
will eventually disappear from our landscape.