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December 21, 2003
Tribune-Review

Redstone Creek cleanup complicated

John Piwowar is an optimist -- a farmer and former school board member, he has spent a considerable portion of his adult life looking on the bright side. 
Now, this sanguine attitude is being tested.  As president of a small group of public-minded citizens dedicated to cleaning up the polluted Redstone Creek

watershed in Fayette County, Piwowar expresses near certainty that some day he will cast for trout in the stream, currently a dumping ground for acid mine drainage.

"My one concern," he said, "is that Growing Greener" -- the five-year-old state program that has pumped some $148 million into environmental projects -- "will be short of funds."

"It's going to be a struggle because we're not assured of money."

Piwowar and his group, the Greater Redstone Clearwater Initiative, hope to spend somewhere between $2 million to $5 million on mitigation -- likely, a settling pond on five to 50 acres of land -- for the acid mine drainage that bursts from the ground near Phillips, a former mining town four miles north of Uniontown, into Redstone Creek and, eventually, the Monongahela River.

The Phillips outbreak measures 1,500 gallons per minute, or 730 million gallons a year, one of the largest such outflows in western Pennsylvania, officials say.  The outflow, which is iron oxide accumulated from scores of former deep mines within a 12- to 15-mile radius of Phillips, has been flooding into the creek for decades.  Only the most hardy aquatic life has survived.

According to Piwowar, an aroused citizenry is essential if the creek is ever to return to a near-pristine condition.  The group needs volunteers with the time and talent to perform a variety of tasks.  Public engagement in the Redstone Creek project also will help ensure the political support that Piwowar and other members of the group view as the key to ultimate success.

"Political leadership is more important than ever," he said.

COMPLICATED PROBLEM

The cleanup of the Redstone Creek watershed, which involves the long, meandering stream with a recorded history dating back to the days of George Washington in western Pennsylvania, plus Little Redstone Creek and Downers Run near Fayette City, is more complicated than it immediately seems.

In addition to acid mine drainage, the watershed is plagued by the problem of human waste that finds its way into the creek from communities without public sewers, including West Leisenring, a rugged former coal patch some three miles from Piwowar's North Union Township farm.

There is also the unsettled issue of run-offs from the aging sewage plant that serves Uniontown and North and South Union townships, and the city of Uniontown's antiquated system of storm and sewer pipes.  The plant sits beside Redstone Creek.

According to Heather Fowler, a watershed specialist for the Fayette Conservation District, public indifference is a challenge all watershed groups struggle to overcome.  As for Redstone Creek, she doubts that most people could trace its course, from its starting point on the western slope of Chestnut Ridge to where it flows into the Monongahela River at Brownsville.

Indifference has apparently bred disregard or even contempt.  The creek bank is frequently strewn with litter, from car tires to plastic eating utensils and old clothing.  Cleanup crews organized by Piwowar's group and manned to a great extent by high school students once pulled more than 60 shopping carts from the creek.

Just yards from busy Fayette Street in the middle of Uniontown, a yellow wooden street barricade sits on its side in the middle of the creek bed.

Perhaps one of the problems is the creek's frequent invisibility.  In Uniontown, Piwowar noted, Redstone Creek disappears beneath streets and glides silently below and in back of buildings out of the range of main thoroughfares.  In the countryside, on its journey to the Monongahela River, it slips from sight at long intervals, bending past forest lands and back-country eddies.

It is evident that the state's Growing Greener program, initiated during the Ridge administration, has helped revive interest in cleaning up polluted watersheds, not just in Fayette County but across the state.  For practically the first time, according to Kurt Knaus, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, money was available to clean up the mess left from the era of deep mining, and community groups jumped at the chance.

In the case of Redstone Creek, other factors were at work.  Piwowar said his interest was sparked by a graduate student at California University of Pennsylvania, but an even more powerful incentive came about during a conversation with state Sen. Richard Kasunic.  According to Piwowar, the Dunbar Democrat expressed the belief that Redstone Creek was beyond saving.

For James Tobal, a retired social science teacher who came to know Piwowar during union contract talks at Laurel Highlands School District, the idea of joining the watershed's board of directors was, in a sense, an act of the imagination.

"I love the outdoors," Tobal said.  "When John (Piwowar) started to talk about some day fishing for trout (in the creek), I was all for that."

Tobal, who reads history and has worked on other public-interest projects, speaks of a "new appreciation for the waterway."  He said he was sure that public interest would swell once people get a sense of Redstone Creek's possible revival.  His own optimism, while not unbounded, is decidedly upbeat.

MANY CHALLENGES

More subdued is board member David Leone.  An engineer, Leone helps to ride herd on grants, which already total better than $200,000 for permits and a design plan for the Phillips project and another acid mine drainage site on nearby Rankin Run, plus a watershed assessment.

Leone, frustrated by the slow pace of the assessment, which is being handled by the environmental consulting firm Skelly and Loy, worries about fund raising and the possibility that the project at some point will begin to generate details too numerous for a volunteer board to track.

Leone indicated that he thought work on the Phillips and Rankin Run sites should be able to proceed after several more years of preliminary work.  At the same time, he worries that landowners, who up to this point have been cooperative, may drag their feet when it comes time to acquire the land and build the pond that will filter out the iron oxide from the discharged mine water.

Even more potentially troublesome, Leone said, is what happens when the group tackles the sewerage problem.

"The acid mine drainage issue is a win-win," Leone said.  "There's a cost involved, but nothing comes directly out of anyone's pocket."

This is not likely to be the case if and when the group gets around to trying to persuade whole communities to install sewer lines.

Piwowar's position is simple:  focus on solving the Phillips and Rankin Run mine drainage problems.  As for the future, he says remove the iron oxide rust from Redstone Creek and see what happens.  Piwowar talks of how the acid mine drainage "masks" the odor of human waste in the creek.  He said he can't imagine the public standing still after getting a whiff of the creek once the iron oxide is removed.

An untidy strategy, he argues, but it may be the best one yet devised.

As for money to pay for the Phillips and Rankin Run cleanups, the DEP's Knaus said the Growing Greener program recently announced a new round of funding:  $37.4 million going to 220 conservation organizations statewide.  He said officials believe the program is once again on firm financial ground with the addition of a $4-per-ton trash deposit fee paid by haulers and their customers.

Knaus said he expected funding to stay at the $40 million level for several years.  Support for Growing Greener, both in the Rendell administration and among lawmakers, is strong, he said.

Despite past differences with Piwowar, Kasunic supports the Redstone Creek cleanup, according to the senator's spokesman, Steve DeFrank.  "We certainly support every (such) project," he said.  Kasunic "is always of the opinion that we can move mountains."

DeFrank said he could neither confirm nor deny what Piwowar said were Kasunic's earlier, discouraging remarks about getting Redstone Creek back in good shape.

As for making Redstone Creek a priority, decisions about how and where Growing Greener money is spent are made by DEP, DeFrank said.  The fact that the Phillips acid mine drainage may be the largest in western Pennsylvania should help it gain recognition, he said.