Executive Summary  

This plan is a component of a watershed conservation plan prepared for the Lackawanna River Watershed, a sub basin of the North Branch Susquehanna River in northeast Pennsylvania.  The plan has been developed by the Lackawanna River Corridor Association, a not-for-profit community-based river conservation organization with the participation of the Lackawanna County Planning Commission, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection - Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, and Water Quality, the United States Army Corps of Engineers, local business interests, property owners, community organizations and interested citizens.

The development of this plan component has been funded by a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Small Watershed Grant Program administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.  The Lackawanna River Watershed Conservation Plan which includes this document has been funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Rivers Conservation Program, the Scranton Area Foundation and community support through the membership of the Lackawanna River Corridor Association.

The watershed conservation plan is an update of the Lackawanna River Citizens Master Plan of 1990.  The purpose of the conservation plan is to identify projects, programs and partnerships to advance watershed conservation and stewardship.

The purpose of the mine reclamation plan component is to examine the history and impacts of the anthracite coal mining industry in the Lackawanna Valley, to assess past and current reclamation programs and to synthesize the variety of pending programs through this document to maximize the interactive potential of new reclamation work and optimize multi objective outcomes.

This document brings together pending and potential programs, describes the relationships of the various programs, delineates partnerships among the various stakeholders and agencies, inventories near term projects, and proposes priorities for mid and longer term objectives.

This plan suggests roles for public and private agencies and the involvement of economic and community development objectives with reclamation and watershed restoration work.

Lastly, the plan draws together reclamation and economic infrastructure projects which total nearly 60-million-dollars and which will be implemented in the Lackawanna Valley during the next ten years.  It is our goal, as an organization representing both the environmental and socioeconomic interests of the Lackawanna Valley community, to insure that this plan and the work it describes will support the economic and environmental sustainability of our community.

On behalf of the Lackawanna River Corridor Association and our interagency partners,

Bernard McGurl, November 2001