Protect the Source
Cool? Yes. Refreshing? Sure. Clean? Maybe.
That cool refreshing drink, your glass of water, is one more pool or puddle in water’s flow though the watershed from clouds to surface to the ocean and back to the clouds. The pipes, wells and other systems that remove water from its natural source and transport it to you are a manmade extension of the water cycle.
Despite efforts to treat that water before it reaches your glass, what happens in your watershed impacts what makes it to you.
Though few people are aware of the source of their water, how well that source is protected is a vital part of your health. How well the source is protected defines both how clean the waterway and how safe your drinking water.
It all begins with the source.
We are all downstream. Anything that dumps or spills into our waterways threatens our drinking water. Keeping our rivers, lakes and groundwater clean is the first and best way to keep our water safe for drinking.
Cover: Drinking Water
Contamination in the Coalfields
» Some of the most contentious battles in the coalfields and, in fact, anywhere have been fought over water. Is the entitlement to a potable water supply one that should be regarded as a basic human right? This is the source of much debate worldwide — one that while we discuss and ponder, more than 2.5 billion people are living with no regular access to potable water for drinking, bathing and cooking.
Is it surprising then that some of these people live here in the United States, where the majority is fortunate enough to turn on the tap and be rewarded with clean water? Ask any mother who has spent a night or two without potable water whether she thinks water is a basic human right. Ask the owner of a small dairy farm who has to haul enough water for 100 head of cattle or the elderly person who either can’t afford to haul water or who can’t physically do so. These scenes play out every day in coalfield regions across the country as water supplies are destroyed or lost due to mining activity.
In rural southwestern Pennsylvania, coal remains king — a king that has little regard for his subjects. The coal industry recently embarked on a million-dollar advertising campaign in order to convince us that coal is now “clean and green.” Don’t be fooled. America’s addiction to coal is causing the widespread destruction of drinking water supplies across the coalfields. Nothing about this destruction is clean or green.
The Mountain Watershed Association (MWA), home of the Youghiogheny Riverkeeper, is located in rural Fayette County, Pa., where a very extensive public water system exists but many rural areas are still not served. Residents in these areas rely on private water supplies, specifically springs and wells that are frequently lost due to active coal mining. In addition, countless others suffer ongoing contamination from abandoned coalmines.
Private water supplies are incredibly vulnerable as the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection grants them very few protections and private water supply owners frequently wrestle with mining companies over water loss or degradation and replacement water. The question remains: Can a public water system ever really “replace” the pristine springs and wells that once supplied many families?
The PA DEP believes so, but in this area the public water is also made up of the very same groundwater that is being systematically depleted by the coal industry. Captured springs and wells make up the majority of the source water for the public water supply as well. When the groundwater is gone, so goes the source water for both private and public water supplies.
Many of the early cities that became today’s eastern population centers were founded along the banks of mighty rivers including the Ohio, Mississippi and Potomac. In many rural mountainous areas, there was (and still is) no access to large, reliable sources of surface water. Nonetheless, communities continued to develop, often relying on groundwater to supply homes and small farms. These private water supplies have sustained rural communities for hundreds of years.
Throughout Appalachia, as coal was discovered in and around these communities, a great boom and bust cycle began. Despite the high price that coal is currently fetching, many small coalfield communities are still in the bust period that started when the large deep mines of the early 1900s closed. Newer, mechanized surface and underground mining has done nothing to improve the fate of such communities considering they do not reap the financial benefits from having the minerals torn from beneath their feet. In a classic example of profit over people, a coalfield citizen’s environment is sacrificed for what the coal industry would like us to think of as the “greater good,” leaving communities poorer, polluted and often without potable water.
In our own watershed, one particular neighborhood consisting of 40 homes had been without adequate potable water since the early 1980s. Six past surface mining operations in proximity to these homes were hydrologically connected to the shallow aquifer that the residents were drawing water from. Extensive blasting in the area had contaminated this aquifer. A study to determine the possibility of developing deeper wells also showed mine drainage contamination. Many of the mines were abandoned and the bond that had been posted was not nearly sufficient to fix the damages to the surface of the land or the underlying aquifers.
The water drawn from the shallow wells and springs in the area was high in iron and sulfur, discoloring clothing, fixtures, hair and skin. It also caused burns to the skin of the young and elderly. Water quantity was also an issue; many springs and wells in the area would dry up completely during the summer. At times, the issue was a choice between being able to drink water or bathe, further compromising one’s quality of life.
Families in this area are generally low to moderate income and the area is very rural. Located more than 12 miles from the nearest small town, residents were forced to haul in water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Many traveled great distances to wash clothes in water that wasn’t red with iron and were often forced to sponge-bathe or travel to local campgrounds for showers. Families with livestock carried in water from surface streams while residents collected runoff from rain for flushing toilets and watering gardens, a major source of subsistence in this rural area. This lack of water was an incredible hardship for area residents, some of whom had been hauling water since 1979. One family spent an average of $236 a month on water for drinking, cooking and trips to the Laundromat, but was forced to use their contaminated well water for bathing. Residents had organized and petitioned the local water authority for water many times but to no avail as the expansion of public water into rural areas is extremely costly.
Lack of available water created a very dangerous situation for the neighborhood. Volunteer fire companies had to haul in water to fight fires. In the past, numerous structure fires resulted in extensive damage to properties due to the lack of available water. For this reason, families paid an extremely high price for homeowner’s insurance.
A hydrological review of the area completed by the DEP Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation concluded, “past coal surface mining operations near the project area have adversely impacted local water supplies as to both quantity and quality. At least six such past operations in proximity to the project area have been determined to be hydrologically connected and responsible for documented water supply degradation in this area.”
A member of this community approached MWA many years ago. He eventually joined the organization’s Board of Directors and currently serves as its Vice President. He was instrumental in organizing the community members to garner support for extending public water to the area. When MWA decided to raise funds for this project, a public meeting was held and more than 70 area residents attended, expressing their need for a better and more reliable water supply in order to protect their health and the health of their community.
Ultimately, MWA raised more than $1 million in funds to extend public water to these 40 families who were desperately in need of it. Much of the money came from the PA Department of Environmental Protection and included the meager $182,000 bond that had been posted on one of the coalmines that had operated in the area. The company forfeited this sum when the site was deemed abandoned. MWA was required to come up with a “local contribution” — provided by a Community Development Block Grant — as a stipulation of receiving state funding.
The public water line installation began in spring of 2006 and was completed in fall of 2007. Upon completion, rumors were that residents were doing more laundry than ever and taking long, hot showers. One community member said he planned to run the bath water to the top and sit in it until the water got cold — an activity many of us take for granted.
This represents a success story for some of the residents of this community. This particular example, however, is one of regulatory failure and it is mirrored in communities throughout the coalfields. Some of the mining pre-dated the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) and thus was not subject to careful review by the regulatory body to determine the ultimate impacts to the hydrology of the area. Had this review been completed, permits should never have been issued in an area with such a fragile supply of source water. The mining that took place after SMCRA was enacted in 1977 represents a failure on the part of the PA DEP not only due to the lack of an adequate hydrological review but also because the coal companies operating in the area were not forced to post sufficient bond. The expenses and burden of fixing the water supply was instead shifted to Pennsylvania taxpayers and the rural population living in this area.
More stringent protections must be developed for the source water that eventually provides for private and public water supplies in the coalfields, and our regulatory bodies must enforce these protections. The widespread depletion and contamination of groundwater is viewed as a “cost of doing business” for the mining industry and must end. Clean drinking water is critical to the health of our citizens and our communities. It is not a luxury to be sacrificed for the profit of any industry in any area, urban or rural. The right of regular access to a potable water supply should be regarded as a basic human right. Society at large must insist on this right until every United States citizen has such access. As consumers of coal-fired electricity, we are all to blame for water loss and contamination in the coalfields. w
MWA helped extend public water supplies to this young boy’s neighborhood. Here he is taking his first drink from his family’s faucet as they were unable to drink water from their private well.
