Large abandoned mine to be reclaimed in Rostraver

ROSTRAVER – A large row of cattails bordered by wildflowers can be found just beyond mile marker 112 beside a popular hiking and biking trail in Rostraver Township.
Two birdwatchers with binoculars in tow mingled with bicyclists here Monday morning along the Great Allegheny Passage, which hugs the Youghiogheny River near West Newton, Westmoreland County.
And then the view is spoiled by a sprawling abandoned mine waste pile with dangerous cliffs that rise 100 feet or more above the trail at the former Banning No. 4 Mine.
That is about to change under a $7 million federal grant that has been approved for the reclamation of the 110-acre site that holds three coal refuse slurry ponds reached from Vernon Drive, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The DEP also envisions the creation of a renewable solar energy farm on the property after the reclamation work is completed in July 2021. The project is in the design phase, which should be finished in March 2019.
“The project will eliminate the physical hazards and environmental degradation by regrading the coal refuse embankment/piles to more stable slopes,” the department stated in the project description.
Republic Steel, a Youngstown, Ohio, corporation that was once the nation’s third largest steel producer, began disposing its coal refuse on the property from its mine in the 1960s. After it ceased operations in 1984, West Newton Coal Logistics received a permit to dispose of waste at the site from a nearby coal preparation plant, and LTV Steel also disposed of sludge in one of the ponds after the mine closed and was sealed in 1982, DEP records show.
One of the ponds is considered to be a low-hazard dam, and it will be blended, strengthened and stabilized by a material that has yet to be determined.
Surface runoff water will be controlled with terraces reinforced with rock.
The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.