Staff writer
sbeveridge@observer-reporter.com
JOFFRE - A dangerous and steep cliff rises above a stagnant pond filled with tires, just a stone's throw from where adults and children play in rural Smith Township.
There isn't even a fence around this abandoned strip mine hugging Panhandle Trail, a hiking and biking trail that runs past the dump near the village of Joffre.
"Danger lurks just off the trail," Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi said Monday, when officials with the state Department of Environmental Protection visited the area.
DEP Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty selected the mine as a backdrop to kick off the state's annual "Stay Out - Stay Alive" program that urges adventure-seekers to avoid mines and quarries.
Pennsylvania is home to thousands of abandoned mines and quarries, where 31 people have died in accidents in the past eight years, McGinty said.
A 20-year-old man was killed just this year at a site at Reading Anthracite Co. property in New Castle Township. Another man survived a fall in Schuylkill County after a valiant rescue, she said.
"When you venture into these sites, you put your life and the lives of emergency personnel who conduct the search and rescue operations at risk," McGinty said.
The property in Smith owned by Donald Zalaznik is being considered for a reclamation project, possibly in two years, because it is just 10 feet from the recreational trail, DEP officials said.
These types of mine sites date to the days when mining practices were unregulated and companies were not required to restore scarred landscapes. Pennsylvania also has the most abandoned mine fires in the United States, most of which were started in illegal garbage dumps. Dumps like the one in Smith also are breeding grounds for mosquitos that carry the West Nile virus.
Some of the voids have filled with deep water that can be cold enough to stop a person's heart if they fall into them or use them for swimming, McGinty said.
The responsibility falls on the public to stay away from these sites because they are privately owned, she said.
"Number one, it's trespassing," she said. "They are deathtraps."