High schools students to get environmental stewardship lesson at Lowber mine drainage treatment site

Students from five area high schools will get the chance to learn about environmental stewardship and its role in the health of a community during an educational program Friday at the abandoned mine drainage treatment system along the Sewickley Creek in Lowber.

“It gets the kids out in the field where they can see how the treatment site improves the health of Sewickley Creek. They get to see wetlands as well,” said Vanessa Whipkey, executive director of the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association, which is responsible for the passive mine drainage treatment system.

About 150 students from Kiski Area, Mt. Pleasant Area, Greater Latrobe, Yough and Trinity Christian School in Forest Hills are scheduled to participate in the field day demonstrations at the site, Whipkey said. They will tour a mine water treatment site built in 2006 for about $1.3 million.

They will see how the polluted water discharged from the abandoned Marchand Mine is moved through a series of interconnected aeration ponds that promote the formation of orange-colored iron oxide material, which settles in the bottom of the ponds. The goal is to reduce the iron levels by 90% before it filters through the constructed wetlands and into Sewickley Creek, about 1.5 miles from where it meets the Youghiogheny River at Gratztown.

Chemistry professors from Saint Vincent College who will show students how clear water discharged from the mine turns orange when it is aerated, the importance of wetlands and the macroinvertebrates in a creek, which indicates the health of the stream, Whipkey said.

Jim Pillsbury, a hydrologist from Westmoreland Conservation District, said he will talk to students about the concept of people being connected by water, that what goes into a stream in Greensburg reaches Sewickley Creek, the Youghiogheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers.

“We all live downstream,” Pillsbury said.

“It will show the students that everyday decisions we make, can impact our local community and the broader region,” Whipkey said.

As an added benefit, the program “gives the kids the opportunity to see professionals who make their living as stewards of the environment,” Whipkey said.

They also will learn about the history of the Marchand mine site, Whipkey said. The former coal and coke processing facility closed in the 1940s, but polluted mine water was being discharged at a rate of 1,500 gallons per minute into Sewickley Creek, the association said.

Students also will see a pile of the orange iron oxide recovered from the ponds, Pillsbury said. Hedin Environmental and Iron Oxide Recovery Inc. of Castle Shannon, salvages it as a raw material pigment for use in paints, dyes, and stains.