Posts Tagged ‘Upper St. Clair’
There’s a reason…
Wednesday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent endeavor, and part of my growing interest in the ‘leave behinds’ of the coal mining industry in Western Pennsylvania – and Pittsburgh in particular – found me entering the Wingfield Pines Conservation Area.
This setup is designed to remediate iron pyrites and other contributions from a shuttered and fairly massive coal mine, compounds which have become dissolved into the flow of ground water and oxidized, causing surface waters to turn acidic and display a bright orange coloration after emerging from the underground – or as I’ve started calling it – the ‘Underburgh.’
The acidic ph values of the mine water are inimical to several species living in the water columns of the creeks, runs, and streams.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I first became aware of this project when reading up on Chartiers Creek over in nearby Bridgeville, and decided to take a look.
Back on Newtown Creek in NYC, I always talked about ‘using’ the mechanisms of nature to ‘cure’ up what we’ve collectively done to the waterway.
My take has always been that if you need to electrify a device, or fuel it in the name of some environmental remediation, that you’ve already lost the battle. Nature is how you fix nature, not pumps or pipes. (they do, in fact, pump the mine water ‘up’ here, as a note)
Newtown Creek Alliance’s installation of shellfish batteries along the banks of the creek has been very promising, and since I’ve left NYC my ‘homeboys’ have been working quite closely with the Billion Oyster Project to install even more filter feeders into the water column.
As is habit, one captured images of the various installed signboards, which carry website and Agency information about Wingfield Pines;
Signage #1, signage #2, signage #3.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I had stupidly walked the wrong direction at the start of this one, and right into a bog. My shoes were soaked through to the soles instantly, but what are you going to do? If I wanted to be comfortable, I’d have stayed at home and watched TV.
Luckily, I found the actual path.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Said bog. This was right over the side of the wooden walkway, not on the far side where I had gotten my shoes wet.
The scheme they have here involves water being moved up from the underground, and that liquid displays with a bright orange coloration.
There are four separated pools, and the liquid filters through both soil and plant life while moving through them. By the time that the stuff enters into the fourth pool, it’s almost ready for release, out into the free flowing Chartiers Creek which eventually joins the Monongahela River at the West End Bridge, nearby that admixture point where the ‘Mon’ joins with the Allegheny to form the Ohio River.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As part of the remediation effort, they’ve created hiking trails for the public to enjoy and explore. I was having a devil of a time getting clean shots because of all this verge. Have to come back here during the cold months when everything is dead, so I can get a better look at the system.
As I often say: there’s a reason our ancestors paved over everything.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This shot was as close as I could find a spot to shoot from, one that didn’t involve me standing in ankle deep water and mud, where I could discern the mixing of the mine runoff with the greener surface waters. I’ll definitely check this spot out again during the devastations of winter.
Back tomorrow with something different – at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
Lower St. Clair doesn’t exist, except I live in it
Monday
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is the view I have enjoy driving towards the twice a week ‘PT’ or Physical Therapy appointments, as my broken ankle continues to heal.
It’s more or less at the border between a Pittsburgh community called ‘Mount Lebanon’ and another municipality called ‘Upper St. Clair.’ Both are fairly wealthy suburbs, and this photo was gathered at a point that’s about eight miles out from Downtown Pittsburgh. The ‘upper’ part of the town’s name made me curious, and I asked a few of the locals who are far more familiar with this area than I am. Their answer was always the same – there is no ‘Lower St. Clair,’ nor is there just an ordinary ‘St. Clair.’
Turns out that there actually used to be a Lower St. Clair, and that I actually live in it. Let me explain…
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Other than using the Whiskey Rebellion breaking out in St. Clair back in 1794 as a historical benchmark, the earliest European footprints here (that were recorded into the historic record, at least) involve a fellow named John Fife. Mr. Fife established a homestead not too far from where today’s first shot was taken, back in 1762.
St. Clair, named for one of Washington’s Generals, divided itself over time and established an Upper (to the south) and a Lower Saint Clair, to the north. So… Lower St. Clair existed.
The latter or northern section of Lower St. Clair began to subdivide into local governance during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and independent municipalities (including the City of Pittsburgh itself) began to absorb, annex, or otherwise appropriate the land. I’m led to understand that Banksville, Carnegie, Bloomfield, Beechview, and Dormont (where HQ is found) – amongst other towns and boroughs – were all created out of what was once Lower St. Clair, which itself no longer exists as a governmental entity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This series of facts cut the legs off of a fiction story which I was fleshing out in my head while driving, one which would have made the case for a subterranean network of tunnels under Upper St. Clair, which would be colloquially referred to (in hushed whispers, of course) as Lower St. Clair. Fantasies of Morlocks danced in my head, and hatches hidden away in the suburban basements of tony Upper St. Clair. C’est la’vie, huh?
Back tomorrow with something different at this – your Newtown Pentacle.
“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle
Buy a book!
“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.
