Lackawanna in an Algonquin Indian word meaning "where the streams meet". The valley served Indians with rich soil for crops and good hunting of moose, elk, deer, panther, bear, etc. Eventually the area was settled by Europeans and it was not soon after that coal was found. This discovery brought an urban face to much of the valley with farms developing around.

 

The watershed drains 350 square miles encompassing parts of Susquehanna, Wayne, Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties. 83% is urban and 17% is rural. Along with the 250, 000 people there are still a lot of wildlife. The Lackawanna River Watershed is part of the larger Chesapeake Bay Watershed that encompasses 64,000 square miles.

 

The Lackawanna River takes its name from Lech-uh-wanna, a Lenni Lenapi word meaning "stream that forks". The Lenapi, an Algonquian speaking tribe, inhabited the Delaware and Upper Susquehanna Valleys at the time of European settlement. The words Lehigh and Lackawaxen may also derive from the same Algonquian word.

 

The sixty-two mile long Lackawanna River drains a three-hundred fifty square mile watershed in four counties of northeastern Pennsylvania: Susquehanna, Wayne, Lackawanna, and Luzerne.
 

The years around 1960 were significant for the Lackawanna River. On January 29, 1959 the Knox Mine Disaster occurred in Pittston. Miners were stealing pillars of coal from under the bed of the Susquehanna River when a charge set to loosen coal caused the riverbed to collapse into the mine. This disaster permanently flooded the underground mines in the Wyoming and lower Lackawanna Valley. It was the death knell for what was left of the anthracite industry. The last underground mine in the Lackawanna Valley, the Continental Mine, shut down in 1966. (This mine is now the Lackawanna Coal Mine at McDade Park).

 

With the end of underground mine operations, the thousands of mine tunnels and voids under the valley filled up with ground water and surface water which infiltrates through strip mines and stream beds. All this water has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is the River! From Forest City to Duryea, there are over a dozen tunnels, shafts or bore holes where mine drainage flows unchecked into the River. There are also hundreds of other locations where mine water seeps through hillside springs and into nearby streams.

 

The body of water under the Lackawanna Valley is known as the Northern Anthracite Mine Pool. If it were a lake on the surface, it would rival one of New York's Finger Lakes in size -- at least in area. As water percolates through the abandoned mine voids, it picks up metallic compounds and minerals from the coal and the rocks between layers of coal. Iron, aluminum, manganese and sulfur compounds are dissolved in the mine water. The mine pool water is largely anaerobic or lacking in dissolved oxygen. Mine water is also highly acidic having a pH between 3 and 6. When this water reaches the surface and enters a river or stream, the metallic sulfide compounds tend to seek out dissolved oxygen in the surface water. The acidic sulfides bond with the dissolved oxygen and precipitate out of solution. This chemical reaction coats the rocks in and along the riverbanks with a characteristic yellow-orange coloring. Miners have their own name for the substance.

 

Drilled by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1961, the Old Forge Bore Hole is the biggest abandoned mine drainage outfall in the Northern Field. At 400 feet deep, and 3 ½ feet in diameter, the Old Forge Bore Hole drains an estimated 100-150 million gallons of abandoned mine water every day into the Lackawanna River. Purposely set in the lowest area of the Keyser Valley (Old Forge), the bore hole relieves a mine pool with the surface area of Lake Wallenpaupack. Although detrimental to the aquatic life of the Lackawanna, without the bore hole this water would seep into basements of low elevation houses and businesses from Blakley to Duryea.

The sedimentary effects of the Old Forge Bore Hole can be seen looking north from the Fort Jenkins Bridge in Pittston at the east side of the Susquehanna River.



Stained orange primarily with iron and sulfur, there has been talk of a mineral harvesting plant on the Lackawanna River just south of the bore hole to rid the water systems of this acidic burden. This would also generate revenue from the minerals harvested, but nothing has taken affect yet.

Lackawanna River Corridor Association. lrca.org/pages/amdaml/pages/amdoldforgeborehole.htm

 

US Geological Survey. pa.water.usgs.gov/fact_sheet_96/fs-038-96.html 1997