Fayette residents seek end to mine fire
After decades of putting up with an abandoned mine fire threatening their Fayette County homes, and several attempts to control the blaze, residents are hoping the latest effort will finally bring an end to the saga.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has awarded a $3.2 million contract to GAI Consultants of Homestead, Allegheny County, to control and extinguish the Percy Mine fire, which has been burning almost unabated near the villages of Percy and Youngstown, in North Union Township, since 1974.
A legacy of past mining along the Uniontown Syncline of the Pittsburgh coal seam, the fire is believed to have been started by burning trash.
The Percy mine, which operated on top of the Youngstown mine, closed in the 1950s. The Youngstown mine, originally owned by the H.C Frick Co., closed in the 1920s.
The underground fire, one of 38 burning in Pennsylvania, including nine in Fayette County, is located just east of the Connellsville Street exit of Route 119, near Gaddis Crossroads. It is bounded on the west by an underground pool of water and on the east by an outcrop on Chestnut Ridge, so it can travel only north and south.
But, if not extinguished, it could eventually threaten Connellsville to the north or Uniontown and Smithfield to the south, according to Tom Rathburn, a spokesman for the DEP's Office on Mineral Resources Management.
Since the blaze was discovered, the DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation and the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement have tried several methods to control the fire's movement.
In the early 1980s, OSMRE excavated a large cut-off trench to remove the fuel leg of the fire.
That held the fire at bay for about 10 years. But in 1991 a fissure developed along Shady Grove Road, surface venting was observed, an overall increase in the fire's temperature was recorded and it was determined that, for the first time, the fire was moving toward Youngstown.
Mary Daugherty bought her home in Youngstown in 1994.
"When I moved here, no one told me there was a fire in my backyard," Daugherty said.
In the mid-1990s, state and federal officials met with area residents, Daugherty said, and a contractor was brought in to stop the fire's advance by drilling bore holes and pumping in a fly-ash cement grout to control the fire.
"That was hard to deal with," Daugherty said. "That ash was everywhere, in your house, in your lungs."
But the fire burned on.
The funding for the latest project is coming from the federal Office of Surface Mining, but that office will have no technological input on the project, according to Stanley Michalski, senior geologist with GAI.
In August, GAI and subcontractor Howard Concrete Pumping of Bridgeville, Allegheny County, began drilling more than 350 bore holes on the 58-acre site. GAI and Howard will work with DEP throughout the course of the project.
Howard has started to pump directly into the holes a trademark slurry material made up of coal combustion ash from the Elrama Power Station in Washington County, cement and water.
Once the project is completed, both Rathburn and Michalski said, it is anticipated that fire will be finally extinguished and that the slurry will fill in underground gaps and prevent mine subsidence.
In announcing the GAI contract in June, DEP secretary Kathleen McGinty said, "It is absolutely imperative that we eliminate this hazard in order to safeguard the health and well-being of people living nearby, and protect their homes from damage or total loss. We cannot wait another three decades to correct this problem."
Lois Minnick, of Youngstown, said, she was told by government officials that the fire was out after the mid-1980s attempt.
"The following summer we found out it wasn't," Minnick said.
As for the mid-1990s attempt, Minnick said, "It caused havoc for everybody. I had to take my grandson, who has cystic fibrosis and lives with me, to my daughter's home in Oklahoma at my own expense."
Minnick has attempted to sell her house three times, but each time, she said, the banks refused to finance the sale because of the fire.
Rathburn admitted the fire threatens the health and well-being of residents, not to mention the value of their homes.
"The smoke is very noxious," Rathburn said, noting it contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and sulfur gases, along with high levels of particulate matter.
The underground temperature in the area has been monitored for years through a series of bore holes that Minnick and her neighbor, Emory Vall, pointed out. Several of the temperature monitoring holes are within feet of Vall's property.
"You never forget there is a fire that close," Minnick said. "There are places in the fields near the road where the snow doesn't lay because the ground is too hot."
Vall, who has had a half-dozen new bore holes drilled on his property by GAI in the past couple months, remembers the mess the 1995 attempt created.
"We asked OSM to fix it, but they said it wasn't their problem," Vall said. "They were horrible to work with."
But both Vall and Minnick said, this time around, things are different.
Despite GAI drilling most of the new bore holes, including a half dozen on his property, Vall said, "You don't know they're here unless they knock on your door. When they drill, they make a little pile of dirt but they clean it up right away."
Vall said he has been told that ash is not expected to be a problem this time around because the slurry is being pumped into the holes through lines that will run directly from a batch plant built by Howard along Shady Grove Road.
"Right now, we're not unhappy at all," Minnick said. "They're keeping it just like they said they would."
Vall agreed.
"I've been disappointed with OSM in the past," Vall said. "They used us as guinea pigs. This time we don't have to put up with their dust and their lies."
