This year, the City of Pottsville reached the halfway mark of its goal to reclaim 43 acres of mine subsidences on Sharp Mountain.
But with no government funding available for the next phase of the Sharp Mountain Reclamation Project, it may also be the stopping point, Kenneth J. Levitz, Jim Thorpe, the project manager, said Friday.
“Our current funding will be exhausted either this construction season or very early in 2015. That will be the end of our public dollars and that will be the end of our ability to work up here,” Levitz said while standing atop the mountain just south of 25th Street on Friday.
He doubted there would be any grant funding available to continue the project, even though Colleen Connolly, community relations coordinator with the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Northeast Regional Office, Wilkes-Barre, said Friday the city is still welcome to apply.
The Sharp Mountain Reclamation Project, now in its 14th year and in its eighth phase, has, to date, been a nearly $7 million effort to fill mining pits to make the landmark safe for recreation and, possibly, future development. If the project stops, the city will continue to discourage hikers, bikers and ATV riders from exploring the mountain, fearing for their safety, according to city Administrator Thomas A. Palamar.
An accident at a crop fall on the mountain claimed the life of a Pottsville man in 1984, according to the newspaper’s archives.
“Hey, let’s try to stay positive here,” Mayor James T. Muldowney said Friday, when talking about the mountain, its issues and the reclamation effort.
“Things are definitely better than they were. They’ve been made a lot safer. But there are still hazards on the mountain,” Dan Koury, DEP watershed manager at the Pottsville District Mining Office, who was on scene Friday, said.
City Councilman Joseph J. Devine Jr. said he’s hopeful the reclamation effort will continue and the mountain will one day become a recreation destination.
“That’s once these pits are filled. I think there might even be the potential for future housing. Just look at the view here,” Devine said standing on the mountain Friday.
Since the Sharp Mountain Reclamation Project started in 1999, the state, city and the local businesses who contributed materials and manpower to fill the crop falls put $6,959,556 into the project, according to figures provided by Connolly.
Through grants, the state has invested $4,017,315. The city provided $2,942,241 in matching funds, not with dollars but the value of the manpower and materials area businesses contributed to the project, Palamar said.
“Our contributing partners include Fabcon and businesses like those. They give us supplies. And there’s a value associated with everything they provide to us. Sometimes it’s trucking. Sometimes it’s the material. So our matching funds for this project didn’t come from our general fund. The city never contributed any actual cash. Our matching funds were made up of those in-kind services,” Palamar said.
Palamar said the last time the city applied for state funding for the Sharp Mountain project, the application was approved. That was for the $467,000 Growing Greener grant for Phase VIII.
Connolly said the city can continue to apply for state grants.
“Growing Greener grants are still active in Pennsylvania. The deadline to submit applications in 2014 was July 11, but another round should open next year,” Connolly said.
“If there is funding available, we will apply,” Palamar said.
But Levitz is under the impression the state isn’t interested in contributing much to such reclamation projects.
“This, in essence, for us is the end of the hunt. Over time the people who manage Growing Greener have changed their priorities of what’s important to them and how they distribute the funding they have. We used to be way up high on the priority list. We no longer are. They lean more now toward active watershed restoration and mine water treatment. We just don’t make the cut,” Levitz said.
Last year, the city hired Miller Bros. Construction, Schuylkill Haven, as the general contractor for Phase VIII. It involved the installation of stormwater swales along the dirt switchback access road and filling in a pit which was 200 feet deep and 40 feet wide.
Palamar estimated Phase VIII was more than 80 percent complete.
When that phase is complete, Levitz said the city will make an effort to clean up the reclamation site.
“We’ll take care of any potential environmental obligation the city would have had assuming this project to begin with,” Levitz said.
The earth movers will leave the mountain and partnerships the city had with private businesses to dispose of industrial ash in the open pits will end.
In 2000, DEP officials determined there were at least 43 acres of crop falls on Sharp Mountain a quarter mile south of 20th Street and stretching west.
Crop falls are subsidences along vertical coal seams. They can be perilous to hikers, joggers, bicyclists and dirt bikers, Palamar said.
While hikers, bikers and walkers enjoy the mountain, the city doesn’t encourage just anyone to use Sharp Mountain for recreation, Palamar said.
“It’s still an area that’s subject to these mine subsidences,” Koury said.
The city has also warned people to stay away from the reclamation work zones and the earth movers there in particular. There is a sign at the entrance to the mountain just off of 20th Street: “DANGER MINE RECLAMATION AREA DO NOT ENTER by order of the MAYOR of the City of Pottsville. This project is funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Growing Greener Grants Program.”
City officials said the only tours of the mountain they approve of are those hosted by city officials or city-approved programs run by local experts. For example, in February 2011, Schuylkill On The Move hosted a hike there. Patrick M. “Porcupine Pat” McKinney, educational coordinator for the Schuylkill Conservation District, was part of the trek.
“I think that it is not wise for anybody to run, walk, dirt bike or whatever on the western part of Sharp Mountain. I know that we can’t go up to the Indian Cave anymore due to subsidence issues,” McKinney said Wednesday.
“I would not encourage any recreation activities in that area,” William Reichert, president of the Schuylkill Headwaters Association, said of the mountain Thursday.
Devine could only recall one person who was killed in an accident involving a Sharp Mountain pit.
Early Jan. 4, 1984, Kelly E. Lantz, 24, of Pottsville, was killed when his four-wheel-drive vehicle plunged over a 350-foot coal stripping pit embankment on Sharp Mountain, according to the newspaper’s archives.
“In fact, I think the chassis is still up there,” Devine said Friday.
The accident occurred between 2 and 3 a.m. that day on an embankment about three-fourths of a mile from 20th and 21st streets, according to an article published in The Pottsville Republican on Jan. 4, 1984.
“City police said the accident occurred as Lantz and two companions tried to free the vehicle after it became wedged between trees above a stripping pit. When it broke free, police said, it rolled into the pit, killing Lantz, who was driving, and injuring another young man who was outside pushing,” the article stated.
Lantz was thrown from the vehicle as it rolled down the embankment and was pinned under it when it came to a stop at the bottom, according to the article.