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As staff writer Jennifer Learn-Andes recently reported, the long-lost Espy Run now gently flows above ground for the first time in some 70 years, the waters remaining free and clear of acid mine contamination as it ambles to Nanticoke Creek.
The story ran Aug 14, but is still worth extra attention because it demonstrated in so many ways the complex negative legacy of King Coal and the tireless work over decades needed to repair the environmental damage.
As Learn-Andes put it:
To convey why this achievement is worthy of understanding — and a recently announced environmental award — (Terence) Ostrowski spread out a series of maps at the nonprofit Earth Conservancy headquarters in Ashley, where he serves as President/CEO.
An 1894 map showed Espy Run flowing from the Hanover Reservoir through the West Hanover section of Nanticoke along Espy Street and into Nanticoke Creek, he pointed out.
The stream still generally followed the same path on another map from 1939.
But on a 1950s map, the stream was interrupted and diverted due to strip mining at the Bliss Colliery. Mining created fractures in the earth, swallowing up the stream underground.
“It was disconnected from the watershed and never made its way down to the lower reaches. Instead it went into the strip pits,” Ostrowski said.
As a result, runoff from the Hanover Reservoir and remainder of the 200-square-mile watershed drained through the deep mines and resurfaced, heavily contaminated, through boreholes at the Askam pond area along Dundee Road, he said.
For want of Anthracite — and the wealth it could bring at the time — a creek was lost. But more than that, all the heavy metals and other dangerous pollutants that come with coal mining were found, and brought out to poison our waterways — for decades.
Even when the powers that be decided to address the issue, the answer came at a glacial pace. A 2001 study identified the water quality problems. A 2005 Nanticoke Creek Watershed assessment led to creek reconstruction plans. In 2016, the design, permitting and grant process began.
That’s some 50 years ignoring the problem, 15 years figuring out what to do and how to pay for it, and nearly seven years to get it done. So, yeah, It’s worth understanding just how big an achievement this is, even if the sight of a little creek and some riparian forest for protection isn’t exactly the Grand Canyon, or even the Lehigh Gorge.
But it was a much-needed, Herculean effort, rightly prompting Earth Conservancy Communications Director Elizabeth Hughes to say “to hear the stream burbling through the rocks was mind-blowing. It’s just really incredible.”
Considering the time it took to make it happen, she’s not exaggerating. But as worthy of celebration this accomplishment is, it’s also a sad testament to just how much damage an unregulated industry can do, how long it can last, and how hard it can be to repair. As such, it also serves as a cautionary tale for today and the future.
There certainly is such a thing as too much red-tape, too much regulation hamstringing development. But there’s ample evidence here and around the country — and the globe — that too little regulation, too much focus on immediate gain without long term considerations, can bring havoc for generations.
— Times Leader