Section B.5  Remaining Priorities and Summary Recommendations

B.5.1   Next Steps

The wide range of activities described in Section 4 can be expected to achieve the most significant advance in the reclamation of AML and the restoration of watershed values and functions since the close of the anthracite industry in 1960.  When many of the small, mid and larger scale projects are completed during the next ten years, there will still be a large amount of work remaining, especially in the lower watershed.

The Lackawanna River Partnership and the Watershed 2000 program should continue as a process to guide reclamation work in the watershed.  The reclamation process can increasingly function with greenway, open space infrastructure and economic development programs to foster a more rational land and water resource stewardship ethnic in the Lackawanna Valley.

The next two years will be critical in measuring the efficacy of the partnership concept, the collection and analysis of data and the formation of projects through Watershed 2000.  This project assessment ranking and feasibility work in the mid and upper watershed will address the AMD issues above Carbondale and in the Mid Valley.  Watershed 2000, BAMR and Corps projects will address seven or eight mid and up valley creeks, one in Scranton and one down valley.

The following table lists creeks with significant reclamation work expected to be completed during the next five years:

Stream Corridor Reclamation Projects

Completion Expected by 2006

B.5.2   Ongoing Need Assessments

Over a longer period LRCA recommends that culm bank projects may be a focused way to address highly impacted reaches of stream where the balance of impacts may not contribute to larger watershed degradation. This is particularly the case with the river itself.  LRCA suggests that several culm banks and depositional sites on tributaries and the river be prioritized for removal.  We expect these sites will remain a top priority of the LRCA until they are removed or addressed to prevent immediate contact with water courses.

The Watershed 2000 program proposes the use of watershed degradation criteria as previously discussed to include water quality, water flow, biological and habitat, and socioeconomic criteria.  These assessments will benefit by receiving several sources of data: The river reach and tributary stream surveys developed in this plan, the statewide assessment data being collected in 2001 by PA DEP-BWQ, watershed-wide data from other watershed projects.  That data will be supplemented with current field data on water quality, flow and habitat.

B.5.3   Continuing Public Involvement

While these assessments will help rank projects, the ability to actually bring a project to the implementation phase will be dependent on other variables such as scope, development and operational feasibility, property owner involvement and support, community and political support.

Establishing property owner, community and political support has been crucial to the success of recent BAMR projects and recent Lackawanna River Heritage Trail projects.  This implies that a significant public involvement, public outreach program needs to be conducted in conjunction within Watershed 2000.

There is a need to develop and maintain informed support among local citizens and to exercise that support with legislative representatives at the state and federal level.  While we may expect to see sixty to eighty-million-dollars worth of combined federal, state, local and private reclamation projects in the Lackawanna in the next ten years, the unmet needs will require five to ten times that amount to adequately address.

B.5.4   Unmet Long Term Financial Needs

The Committee on Resources of the U.S. House of Representatives conducted an oversight hearing on abandoned mine land reclamation needs of the Pennsylvania anthracite fields in Scranton on January 24, 2000.  Three members of Congress from the anthracite region joined the Chairman, Alaskan Congressman Don Young and Committee staff to take an afternoon of testimony from local citizens, federal and state agency staff and elected officials.  Issues related to the abandoned mine land trust fund and other innovative funding mechanisms were discussed along with data and information similar to that presented in this planning document.  The message delivered to Congress by the local citizens was that the unmet financial needs for reclamation should be met by Congress.  The end result of the hearing was that a small increase in funding for AML/AMD projects in the anthracite region was included in the next federal fiscal budget.  A comprehensive program such as Growing Greener at the federal level would be a welcome compliment to the state and local efforts.

B.5.5   Longer Term Expectations

The Watershed 2000 program and related matching work will not meet all needs in the Lackawanna.  Most of the highly degraded watersheds in the upper and mid-watersheds will be addressed.  The down valley priorities may indeed need further legislatively designated appropriations.  Certainly Growing Greener and related Pennsylvania programs will remain a basis for continued work in the Lackawanna.

The remaining creeks, watersheds and culm dumps on the LRCA’s present list of priorities may require at least 80-million-dollars.  The outlook for the near term eight to fifteen years out suggests that the initiative of Watershed 2000 has the potential to involve the community and secure the resources needed to continue the reclamation of the Lackawanna Valley.

A comparison of expected outcomes from Watershed 2000 projects with LRCA and BAMR watershed priority lists, LRCA culm bank list and the Lackawanna AMD list demonstrates that by 2008, there will still be sixteen to eighteen AML sites with larger culm banks near the water course.  There will still be seven important second order tributaries with greater than 50% of their water courses completely degraded.  There will be another twenty-four creeks with significant degradation such as total flow loss and nonexistent aquatic habitat.  There may still be the Old Forge Bore Hole to deal with.

The Watershed 2000 process, building on this plan, will provide a structure, a methodology to assess the remaining problems and move towards pragmatic, cost effective, technologically appropriate, and environmentally sustainable solutions.

As this process continues into the Twenty-first Century, the landscape and hydrology of the Lackawanna watershed will gradually become reclaimed and help sustain a more vital human and natural community.