Aug. 14—Terence Ostrowski hiked through vegetation in Hanover Township last week to reach a marvel he will never tire of seeing — the clear water of Espy Run gently flowing toward the Nanticoke Creek and, eventually, the Susquehanna River.
This stream is unlike the many others winding through this region because it is brand new — the resurrection of a waterway that was erased seven decades ago when it became a victim of coal mining.
To convey why this achievement is worthy of understanding — and a recently announced environmental award — Ostrowski spread out a series of maps at the nonprofit Earth Conservancy headquarters in Ashley, where he serves as President/CEO.
An 1894 map showed Espy Run flowing from the Hanover Reservoir through the West Hanover section of Nanticoke along Espy Street and into Nanticoke Creek, he pointed out.
The stream still generally followed the same path on another map from 1939.
But on a 1950s map, the stream was interrupted and diverted due to strip mining at the Bliss Colliery. Mining created fractures in the earth, swallowing up the stream underground.
“It was disconnected from the watershed and never made its way down to the lower reaches. Instead it went into the strip pits,” Ostrowski said.
As a result, runoff from the Hanover Reservoir and remainder of the 200-square-mile watershed drained through the deep mines and resurfaced, heavily contaminated, through boreholes at the Askam pond area along Dundee Road, he said.
A 2001 study identified the severe water quality problems associated with Espy Run’s underground disappearance, which led to a 2005 assessment of the Nanticoke Creek Watershed and plans to reconstruct the waterway as it was intended.
A riparian forest buffer also was designed for the new channel to improve habitat and create a wildlife corridor to the top of the Wilkes-Barre Mountain, Earth Conservancy said.
Design, permitting…
