Jennings State Park: Passive Treatment System

Jennings State Park is one of one hundred state parks in Pennsylvania. State Parks are most used for recreational purposes and each park is located within 30-minute radius of residence. However, Jennings State Park is one in four State Parks that has an education center and welcomes the public for educational activities throughout the year. Jennings State Park is home to a 20-acre prairie ecosystem where it features the blazing start plant and the endangered species of the massasauga rattlesnake. Otto Emeny Jennings, a botanist found one-third of an acre prairie in 1905 and he worked to have it protected by 1940. The massasauga rattlesnake is in the endangered list due to habitat lost and is only found inside the prairie, not in the surrounding
wooded areas.
Another important feature inside Jennings State Park is the Passive Treatment System for abandoned main drainage. Western Pennsylvania has an abundance of Bituminous Coal Fields, which caused 4,000 thousand to 5,000 abandoned coal mines. The coal mine in Jennings State Park is a drift mine that operated from 1935 to 1942. A drift mine is dug into the outcrop of coal in an upward angle in a horizontal passageway, which was done so water runoff would leave the mine and gravity would help the horse carry out the coal carts. In 1942, men were drafted and called to fight in World War II. This caused for many mines throughout Pennsylvania to be abandoned with no remediation to be done because environmental regulations did not exist. Due to regulations, not existing abandoned mine drainage (AMD) would leak for the abandoned mines running rainfalls or daily because of groundwater runoff. AMD is an orange colored, acidic runoff with iron and heavy metals, which is toxic to streams and rivers wildlife when it comes in contact. In the late 1960’s environmental regulations started and mining companies were responsible to clean up abandoned mine drainage.
The first attempt to remediate the drift mine in Jennings State Park was in 1970 with plugging the mine entrance because research of AMD was new, no one knew what the best way to treat AMD.
Plugging the mine worked until a heavy rain and flood event in 1984, where the plug came loss and AMD started running out again. With engineering, trial and error Jennings State Park has a Passive Treatment System to clean up the acid, by adding a base and heavy metal, by adding oxygen from the runoff. It all starts with AMD being piped from the mine into a pond where is disperse with different pipe lengths. The bottom of this pond has crushed limestone which helps the acidity of 5 pH turn to a normal pH of 7. However, in the pond there is also, mushroom compost and mulch to remove all the oxygen, so the heavy metal precipitating doesn’t clog the limestone. After the pond is piped a horseshoe wetland, where oxygen is added in three ways: aerations with flow through a pipe elbow, vegetation in the wetland through photosynthesis, and diffusion from the surface of the water. The iron content lowered from five part per million to 2 part per million when we were there through precipitation. Brandi our guide, told us that normally it does lower to 0.5 parts per million as recommended. In this wetland, there are different invertebrates living there, which means that the water is mostly healthy. After the wetland, the water is mixed with a AMD stream coming from one of the vents of the mine where
is diluted and piped under the road into a four-wetland system that goes into Big Run Stream. If this system is down an Aquafix System is used which measured the flow and determines how much lime the water needs for the flow and it goes to the four-wetland system, then to Big Run Stream.
Brandi also, told us about various jobs opportunities in Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
She mentioned that jobs range from seasonal to full-time depending on where you work. Working in administration, law enforcement, and park managers are usually full time. She works in education which is a seasonal job and a four-year degree is needed. There are two main jobs in education, one is the Environmental Education Specialist and the EIT. Another job opportunity the is currently open is the Park Manager Trainee program, due to the retirement of current park managers. Some jobs within DCNR like maintenance a four-year college degree is not needed. There are many positions within DCNR for various
majors.