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Field Trips

Mid-Congress Field Trips

Field trips 1 to 5 are ½ day and cost $US 65 to 85 per per­son and trip. They will be offered twice dur­ing the con­fer­ence on Wednes­day. Par­tic­i­pants can sign up for two trips on the field trip day. Field trip 6 is one day and costs $US 125 per per­son.

Humphrey Mine Tour 2023

Field Trip 1 – Jeff Skousen | $US 65

Humphrey Mine and Mylan Park

Humphrey Mine is a 40-ha active lime­stone and coal mine pro­duc­ing coal from three seams and a slur­ry pond. Vis­i­tors can see the com­plex geol­o­gy of the high wall and the unique machin­ery used in the mine. Mylan Park is a 50-ha indus­tri­al and leisure devel­op­ment on reclaimed mine land, demon­strat­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of using mined land for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment.

Active Treat­ment Tour 2023

Field Trip 2 – Dave McCoy and Paul Ziemkiewicz | $US 65

Active Treatment Systems

The Mud­dy Creek treat­ment plant demon­strates the water­shed approach to mine water treat­ment. Built in 2018, the plant is respon­si­ble for restor­ing 30 km of streams to a fish­ery. The Richard Mine has pol­lut­ed Deck­ers Creek for more than a cen­tu­ry and the new treat­ment plant will restore the low­er 10 km of the creek. Some of the sludge will be col­lect­ed to extract rare earth ele­ments.

WVTF Pas­sive Treat­ment Tour 2017

Field Trip 3 – Tim Dane­hy | $US 65

Passive Treatment of Acidic Mine Drainage (half day, West Virginia)

Sev­er­al pas­sive sys­tems treat­ing high­ly acidic mine drainage with ele­vat­ed alu­minum and iron will be vis­it­ed. One site uti­lizes low-pH iron removal with a ter­raced iron for­ma­tion. This is pre­ced­ing a mul­ti-stage acid neu­tral­iza­tion sys­tem where a lime­stone pond is flushed into a set­tling pond fol­lowed by a mixed media ver­ti­cal flow pond and wet­land. A sec­ond stop will include a new­ly expand­ed sys­tem for a severe­ly degrad­ed dis­charge (>400 mg/L CaCO3 acid­i­ty). It uses solar-pow­ered valves to flush two lime­stone ponds in series with set­tling ponds fol­lowed by a mixed media ver­ti­cal flow pond and wet­land.

Site Vis­it Details
WVTF Longview Pow­er Plant Tour 2017

Field Trip 4 – Randy Mag­gard and Scott Gib­son | $US 65

Longview Power Plant

The 700 MW coal-fired pow­er plant was con­struct­ed in 2007 at a cost of US$2 bil­lion. It uses a super­crit­i­cal pul­verised coal-fired boil­er, a high-effi­cien­cy tur­bine gen­er­a­tor and advanced inte­grat­ed pol­lu­tion con­trol sys­tems, includ­ing par­tic­u­late removal by fil­ters, flue-gas desul­fu­r­iza­tion to remove sul­fur diox­ide, and cat­alyt­ic reduc­tion to remove nitro­gen oxides and reduce car­bon diox­ide. Vis­i­tors will observe the fuel sup­ply sys­tem from near­by coal mines in north­ern West Vir­ginia and south­west Penn­syl­va­nia, tour the plant and see the residue.

Lau­rel Cav­erns with Own­er David Cale

Field Trip 5 – Bob Klein­mann | $US 85

Laurel Caverns

The guid­ed tour takes 45 min­utes and takes you through the eas­i­est pas­sages of the caves. There are no steps and this part of the cave is a maze with about 1,200 ft (400 m) of colour­ful­ly lit pas­sages. The geol­o­gy and his­to­ry are explained by the guide and there is a sound and light show. You can then take the self-guid­ed tour, which takes a fur­ther 1 hour and includes a 1,800 ft (600 m) walk through the largest, longest and steep­est pas­sages in the light­ed part of the caves. There are about 100 steps and it is stren­u­ous for those with knee, heart, back or short­ness of breath prob­lems. This part takes you down 17 floors in height.

Low­ber site – first oxi­da­tion and set­tling pond with iron oxide piles in back­ground
Greene drain­able lime­stone bed for Mn removal and set­tling pond

Field Trip 6 – Bob Hedin | $US 125

Passive Treatment (full day, Pennsylvania)

The full-day field trip will vis­it two treat­ment sys­tems in Penn­syl­va­nia that demon­strate pas­sive Mn and Fe removal and resource recov­ery. The Greene sys­tem was installed in 2015 to treat 100 gpm (23 m³/h) of acidic water con­tain­ing 45 mg/L Fe, 3 mg/L Al, and 31 mg/L Mn. The sys­tem con­sists of aer­o­bic ponds that remove most of the Fe, fol­lowed by four drain­able oxic lime­stone beds that raise the pH and remove Mn. The site has an efflu­ent per­mit that lim­its Mn to 2.0 mg/L (month­ly aver­age). The final efflu­ent from the sys­tem aver­aged < 1 mg/L Mn. The tour will focus on the drain­able lime­stone beds. Rou­tine and major main­te­nance require­ments of the sys­tem will be dis­cussed. A flush­ing event will be observed. The sec­ond stop is the Low­ber sys­tem, which was installed in 2006 to treat 1850 gpm (420 m³/h) of alka­line water con­tain­ing 50–80 mg/L Fe. The sys­tem con­sists of six ponds fol­lowed by a con­struct­ed wet­land and the final efflu­ent aver­ages 1 mg/L Fe. The sys­tem col­lects approx­i­mate­ly 1 t/d of iron oxide solids, which requires reg­u­lar main­te­nance. Infra­struc­ture has been installed to facil­i­tate sludge pump­ing and place­ment of large geo­t­ubes for iron oxide recov­ery. The tour will include a walk through the pro­cess­ing sys­tem, stacked iron oxide and three recent­ly filled geo­t­ubes. The sale of iron oxide as a pig­ment will be dis­cussed.

Post Congress Field Trip

Details about this field trip from Mor­gan­town to Pitts­burgh guid­ed by Brent Means can be found here. Cost is $US 875 per per­son.