The association - which also branched out two years ago to create the Murrysville Area Watershed Association and focus on areas other than just Lyons Run - secures conservation easements from local landowners in order to maintain an optimal state of nature along stream banks. “We want to make it common knowledge how important our streams are,” Sampson said. “It’s also got a little residual alkalinity, which can help neutralize sources of acid downstream.”Īll of this is great news to Lyons Run Watershed Association President Ben Sampson. “The final effluent is neutral with no metals,” Denicola said. That will happen twice in sequence, then it will send cleaned and treated water through nature’s filter - a series of constructed wetlands. “The limestone beds will neutralize the acid, and they also accumulate iron and aluminum precipitants, which are flushed into settling ponds that retain those metals,” Denicola said. Alkaline elements are the chemical opposite of acidic elements.
“We’re going to collect and convey them to a series of treatments, which consist of flushing limestone beds, which impart alkalinity to the water,” Denicola said. Iron imparts an orange tint to the water, and aluminum runoff can turn it an unnaturally bright blue.
That ultimately impacts between 2 and 4 miles of Lyons Run as it conveys water toward Turtle Creek. “The mine is discharging about 150 gallons per minute of acidic high-iron and high-aluminum contaminated mining water into a tributary of Lyons Run.” “Those are common throughout the Pittsburgh Coal Basin, and they generate highly acidic water,” Denicola said. Tim Denicola, an engineer with Civil & Environmental Consultants, said the project will use a series of treatment ponds to filter heavy metals left behind from a shallow mine. The total watershed drains nearly 9 square miles of land along more than 17 miles of streams. Lyons Run flows south through central Murrysville and Penn Township, turning west along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Murrysville officials have secured $2 million in grants to address three mine-water sources within the Lyons Run watershed. Throughout southwestern Pennsylvania, old mines channel water tainted with heavy metals such as iron and aluminum into creeks and streams, killing aquatic life and disrupting the food chain.
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