AMD & ART, Inc.

Vintondale Site

AMD & ART's Vintondale wildlife program is a unique addition to the Three Rivers Habitat Partnership.  This non-profit organization founded by T. Allan Comp, Ph.D.,  "artfully transforms environmental liabilities into community assets."   Through community partnerships, AMD&ART converts brownfield and acid mine drainage sites into environmentally and economically productive community resources while imparting an artistic theme that represents past and present land uses. 

Vintondale, the first of 3 project sites, has begun construction after 5 years of planning, and has chosen to participate in WHC's Wildlife at Work program, which focuses on involving company employees, community members, conservation organizations, and government agencies in the long term, active management of company property to benefit wildlife and increase environmental awareness.  By partnering with WHC, AMD & ART demonstrates its commitment to restoring wildlife habitat and its dedication to enhancing the community.  Vintondale was also awarded a $10,000 Five-Star Grant in 2001 administered by the Wildlife Habitat Council.

Total Acreage:  35
Location: Vintondale, 14 miles from Johnstown, PA
Description of  Activities: 

• passive acid-mine drainage (AMD) treatment system and "litmus garden" of native species                     
• created wetlands to provide wildlife habitat and final clarification of treated water,                     
• planning to plant warm-season grasses and woodland wildflowers to increase wildlife diversity and site aesthetics,                     
• controlling invasive plant species and promoting the growth of native vegetation,                     
• constructing artificial nest boxes for bats, cavity-nesting songbirds, and raptors, and                     
• developing environmental awareness about the site s conservation efforts by constructing a wellness/nature trail.

Community Outreach: 
In addition to serving as a passive acid-mine drainage treatment system and wildlife habitat, the Vintondale site is a community park for the residents.  Planned projects include a playground, pavilions, interpretive trails, and ball fields.  Environmental education is also conducted on site.

Vintondale, Pennsylvania, population 582.  From anywhere in Vintondale, the South Branch of Blacklick Creek can be seen and the causes of Vintondale’s poor economic state become obvious.  The creek is filled with stones stained orange from abandoned mine drainage (AMD).  Backed by a green hill and hemmed in by the orange creek, the most level land in Vintondale is also the blackest, a field of coal refuse.  This 35-acre space, “The Flats,” is the remnant of Vinton Colliery and the portal to Mine No. 6.  In the early 1900s, multi-story buildings sprawled over the site, employing practically all of Vintondale’s capable men.   Coal output was as high as 417,000 tons a year, and was the reason for Vintondale’s existence.  All that remains of this blackfield are memories, and now hope. 

The Flats are the target of an intensive partnership between Vintondale and a non-profit organization called AMD&ART.  AMD & ART, Inc., based in Johnstown, PA, sees abandoned mine drainage as the root of Vintondale’s—and Appalachia’s—environmental, social, and economic problems, and is offering a multidisciplinary method of addressing it.  The method, based on community participation and interdisciplinary design, attests that good science, art, history, and input can transform an AMD treatment system into a catalyst for environmental reclamation, economic redevelopment, and social change. 

Over 15% of Vintondale’s residents have been working with AMD&ART to design and construct an AMD treatment system on the Flats.  Because of the residents’ involvement, this treatment system will also be a community park, a tribute to Vintondale’s heritage, as well as an outdoor laboratory for environmental education.  The treatment system itself will include six ponds of limestone and compost to improve the pH and cleanse the minerals from the AMD water;  a clarification marsh to further improve the water; and an emergent wetland to “test-run” the treated water’s capabilities before it returns to the South Branch of Blacklick Creek. 

 
A bird's eye view of the Vintondale site. 

Constructing wetland habitat on an abandoned mine land will be a difficult endeavor.  Coal refuse will be excavated this spring via the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s “Government Financed Construction Contract” which allows a private contractor to remove the coal refuse on behalf of and at no-cost to AMD&ART and Vintondale.  Once the excavation is completed, dredge material, donated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will be spread and the wetlands vegetated with plants suggested by the Wildlife Habitat Council.  The plants were chosen for specific areas within the wetlands, value to wildlife, and ability to prosper in difficult circumstances.  Preventing infestations of exotics that may be present in the dredge materials will also be a crucial project.  Recommendations were provided for upland areas as well, and to complement the landscape design.  For instance, yellow woodland wildflowers for the Yellow Boy Channel and warm-season grasses near the ball fields. 

By working with WHC in the planning stages of the wetlands, AMD&ART will be able to design and construct wildlife habitat into what could otherwise be just another monoculture.  Planting specifications were only a starting point.  Thanks to funding from the U.S. Forest Service, wood technology classes at Blacklick Valley High School are building nest boxes for birds and bat boxes.  The same students will install them in the wetlands this summer, and will help monitor and maintain the boxes as part of the wildlife team that will be forming soon. 

In addition to wildlife value, the involvement of Vintondale’s youth marks the next stage of AMD&ART’s social change venture.  A grant from the Rockefeller Foundation has enabled the creation of an environmental education center to be housed in the Vintondale Reformed Hungarian Church.  The center will highlight Vintondale’s mining history, its affect on local ecology, and the power of concerned people who transformed an inhospitable piece of land into a thriving landscape.  An outdoor lab using the treatment system and wetlands will complement the center, and provide a hands-on learning experience to inspire proactive participation in the community. 

Impacts of AMD&ART’s project are already apparent, from classes gathering data to teachers anxious to use the outdoor lab.  Local children are leading a project of their own, a BMX bike park, while over fifty Vintondale residents completed a visioning process to incorporate into future planning projects, including adaptive reuse of buildings and main street improvements.  Environmental, economic, and social change is budding, thanks to a bit of creativity and committed partnerships.

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