Panther Creek Partners Generating Station in Nesquehoning, Carbon County, recently received an Excellence in Surface Coal Mining award by the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM), for its dramatic reclamation (use of erosion control products: erosion control blankets, sediment control products, and seeding options) and restoration of an abandoned coal mine site (using a Watersaver Company geomembrane liner). The plant, owned in part by Constellation Power Inc. (CPI), is designed to burn waste coal to produce electricity.  Around 1918, a coal mine was operated on the site. Some 150 acres of coal waste residue remained when the site was abandoned that needed to be contained with a high-strength lake liner material. In addition to aesthetic problems, water running off the refuse was polluting nearby creeks - NPDES Phase II requires strict compliance of using erosion control products.

The award acknowledges Panther Creek Partners’ efforts since 1992 to restore the site following extensive mining. The restoration process included removing the waste coal pile, seeding grasses, planting more than 20,000 tree seedlings, contouring slopes for erosion control and topping off the site with a manufactured topsoil of ash, clay and fine coal refuse produced by the plant’s operation.  Panther Creek’s reclaimed land quickly began to resemble its natural surroundings with little about its finished appearance to suggest that it was ever mined. For the first time in 70 years, vegetation is flourishing at Panther Creek Partners Generating Station, located near the Pocono Mountains.