The Sewickley Creek Watershed Association(SCWA) will receive $100,000 for the Lowber Minewater Resource Recovery Project. SCWA Executive Director Tom Keller said the S100,000 became available through the efforts of Bob Hedin, Hedin Environmental; Bob Dolence and Rod Fletcher,DEP; Congressman John Murtha and John Dawes, POWR. The SCWA now has a total of $150,000 (SCWA received S50,000 from a Growing Greener Grant) and a commitment from a pigment company to take 500 tons of iron oxide sludge from the Lowber minewater discharge. Our plan is to contract with a waste management company to remove and dewater iron sludge from the Lowber site and then truck the filter cake to the customer.
Hedin believes there is an ample supply of iron oxide from the Lowber Discharge to provide this pigment company high quality iron oxide an a regular basis and there is a possibility of building a recovery facility at the Lowber site.
He said, "I think that there is enough iron oxide at the site today to supply the pigment for 2/3 years. If a passive iron oxide recovery system is constructed at the site, it will produce 500 1,000 tans per year of iron oxide. If the material we provide to the pigment company is good enough we should have a market for the Lowber iron indefinitely.
"I think you should prepare the SCWA and newsletter readers for the likelihood that a major proposal to build a treatment system at the site will be coming partly as a result of this project's demonstration that the iron can be disposed of in a good way."
Keller said, "Cenkner Engineering, Inc, recently completed a survey of the Lowber property and by the time SCWA members are reading this update, the resource recovery project will have begun."
As such the Association shall use its resources to educate the citizens of the watershed as to sound environmental practices. In addition, the Association will seek out and cooperate with government agencies, interested organizations, businesses and individuals to implement programs to improve water quality and encourage proper land use.