The Antler Club of Lucinda
231 Sunset Drive
Lucinda, Pa 16235
Phone: 814-227-2830
antlerclub@usachoice.net

 

 

 

Mission: To Clean Acid Mine Drainage from local streams with volunteers from The Antler Club, DEP, and consultants
The Lucinda Watershed Association is made up of a group of volunteers from The Antler Club of Lucinda. The members are outdoorsmen who are trying to clean the local waterways. Licking Creek is a free flowing stream with severe acid mine drainage problems.
The members decided one day to try to clean up Licking Creek. They contacted Hedin Environmental to help them assess the problems on the stream. Together they applied for and received a grant for $32,000 to get started. They put this money to use by doing an assessment on 3 feeder streams, Mahle Run, Step Creek, and Rattlesnake Creek. They found many abandoned gas and oil wells and acid mine drainages along these 3 streams. Bernie Spozio from the Clarion County Conservation District came along and plugged all the wells on Step Creek and most on Mahle Run. There were no wells on Rattlesnake Creek.

The watershed group has applied for a grant to put in a passive treatment system on the headwaters of Rattlesnake Creek at the Obenrader and McCloskey sawmill. This system should clean up the stream so it can hold and produce aquatic life. If this grant is approved the system should be in the ground and running by the summer of 2006.

The watershed group has also received a grant for $75,000 that they are using for an assessment of all Licking Creek. This assessment should be done by the fall of 2005. This assessment is being done by CWM Environmental out of Kittaning. They have walked the entire creek and all of its tributaries.

By doing these walks they found the main polluters of this stream, which includes 38 abandoned gas and oil wells and 54 acid mine drainages. The acid mine drainages come from the old strip mines and deep mines on the surrounding hills. When we apply for the next round of grant money we will try to plug most of the wells and put in some treatment systems. This is a very big job, which will take several years to complete.

The Knox office of the DEP has done everything they can to help us on this project. They are ready to attend any meetings and answer all our questions. Along with the help from the DEP we would also like to thank Hedin Environmental, Bernie Spozio and the conservation district, and CWM Environmental for all of their professional help and advice. With the help from these 4 groups we hope that our children and grandchildren will never see one of our streams running red with acid mine drainage again.

We would like to thank our state representative Fred McElhatten for his interest in our organization. He has attended a few of our meetings and a workshop we had. He, along with our state senator Mary Jo White have helped us secure funding with the Growing Greener grants.

On November 4, 2005 we were contacted by the state DEP saying that we were awarded a Growing Greener grant for $97,601. It is among the first funded by the $625 million Growing Greener II Bond Initiative.
This grant will put a passive treatment system in at the headwaters of Rattlesnake Run by the Obenrader-McCloskey sawmill on Siegel road. This will be a self-flushing treatment system to treat two high aluminum abandon mine discharges.

We have also been approved to do a hydrogeological study on Mahle Run in mid December 2005. Where we have three discharges we would like to make one discharge and put in just one passive treatment system.