Under the sponsorship of the Montour Run Watershed Association (MRWA), a new 3/4-acre facility was designed, permitted, and constructed to treat alkaline, metal-bearing drainage from an abandoned surface coal mine at the base of the BFI landfill near Boggs Road in Findlay Township, Allegheny County.  Facility construction was completed in the fall of 2005.  The system is preventing 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of metals annually, primarily iron, from entering the South Fork of Montour Run.  In addition to the MRWA, the project partners included subcontractors BioMost, Inc.; Quality Aggregates, Inc.; and Aquascape Wetland and Environmental Services.  The total funding was $101,766 ($47,766 from a Growing Greener Grant provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and $54,000 from an Appalachian Clean Streams Initiative grant provided by the Office of Surface Mining of the U.S. Department of the Interior).

The system includes a forebay, two bioswales, an aerobic wetland, and a polishing wetland/ settling pond.  The iron loading in the South Fork has been almost completely eliminated, and the previous highly contaminated discharge of mine drainage has been replaced with naturally functioning ponds and wetlands.  Population of the wetlands with wildlife species has been occurring.  The health of an estimated 2 ½ miles’ length of the stream has been improved.