101 South Main Street, Ashley, PA 18706 Ph: 570 823.3445 Fax: 570 823.8270

Franklin Bank Reclamation

Franklin Bank is a 13.82-acre, mine-scarred land site in Hanover Township, Luzerne County, PA. The site sits adjacent to an existing residential neighborhood.

Prior to EC purchasing the site, the previous owner, the Blue Coal Corporation, had mined this site and left it in an environmentally degraded state when it declared bankruptcy in the mid-1970s.

This site and other Blue Coal properties remained dormant for almost two decades, until Earth Conservancy purchased Blue Coal’s land holdings out of bankruptcy in 1994. EC is now in the process of reclaiming and re-using these former coal company-owned sites in ways to benefit the communities in which they exist.

Earth Conservancy has received a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Brownfields Cleanup Grant to reclaim the Franklin Bank and make the site available for residential development, while also eliminating an environmentally degraded site. This project will remove thousands of tons of mining waste, eliminating a source of mine drainage runoff that presently makes its way into the existing storm water system and local streams and creeks in the Solomon’s Creek watershed.

This reduction in mine drainage will beneficially impact the Solomon’s Creek Watershed by reducing a significant source of Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) contamination and eventual contamination of the Susquehanna River. It will also encourage development in populated areas, helping to preserve pristine lands.

Reclaiming and converting this site to residential use will provide additional land to expand the surrounding neighborhood, improve the local housing stock, increase surrounding property values and attract new residents to Hanover Township, thereby improving the local tax base and economy.

The addition of this site, which will support new modern housing, would be a positive addition to the area’s landscape and a beneficial re-use of this abandoned mining site.

Currently:

§ EC has developed a plan for reclamation and reutilization, which has been approved by the EPA. The Alternatives of Brownfields Cleanup Analysis report was submitted to EPA for approval and made available to the public for comment, which has now closed. You can read the report by clicking here.

§ After the public comment period, EC submitted its decision for reclamation to the EPA, and a contractor was selected via a bidding process.

§ Reclamation work is underway.

Pictured above are parts of the Franklin Bank project site as work to reclaim this Brownfield site begins.