(Editor's note: This is the second part of a two-part series about clean water in our region.)

Concern about the potential for water and air contamination dominated the news in the Tamaqua/Panther Valley area a decade ago.The issue arose as early as 2002 with proposals by Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, Pottsville, to begin reclamation of the Springdale Pit using fly ash, or coal combustion waste.The pit is a 1,200-foot-wide and 400-foot-deep mine reclamation excavation falling within Carbon and Schuylkill counties.It's part of a 7-mile mining operation that geographically touches Tamaqua, Coaldale, Lansford and Summit Hill.The door to fly ash dumping opened in May 2000, when the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that fly ash was not to be considered hazardous waste. Had the government deemed it hazardous, it would've required disposal at special landfills.Following suit, the state Department of Environmental Protection also deemed the material safe and useful for filling mine pits and neutralizing acid drainage.A report issued by the bipartisan state Joint Legislative Conservation Committee said more than 90 percent of the 5 million tons of fly ash generated each year by the state's waste coal burning plants, a $450 million Pennsylvania industry, was used in reclamation. However, environmentalists and others felt the science had shown fly ash dumping to pose a threat to air and water quality.Fly ash invasionFrom the start, local residents worried about potential for contamination of groundwater and wells.Then, when the reclamation project began, heavy truck traffic moved into local communities. Local roads and residential areas became, essentially, industrial haul roads.Grassroots environmental groups took action, including the 800-member Army For A Clean Environment, Tamaqua, which rallied the community through action plans and a highly visible Stop the Dumping campaign.Some, such as Dr. Dante Picciano, a Tamaqua native, pointed out in a public meeting that coal waste contains toxins, among them arsenic, lead and antimony, having potential to leach into groundwater and poison residential wells.Picciano said fly ash was being dumped into the Springdale Pit at a rate estimated at 40 truckloads per hour … sometimes 24 hours a day, and frequently seven days a week."Our towns are covered with fugitive fly ash dust, overrun with trucks and plagued with dirty roads," he said. "In addition, our health and our groundwater are being threatened."Lisa Graves-Marcucci of the Pittsburgh area's Jefferson Action Group Inc. said fly ash contains a potent lung carcinogen called hexavalent chromium. She said DEP didn't test fly ash for the toxin.Picciano maintained that DEP issued dumping permits without meaningful consideration of public comment and while ignoring input and expertise from scientists other than those it pays.At one point, Bill Coleman, Pennsylvania Sierra Club, advised state residents to "think of yourselves as canaries," referring to the mining safety practice of carrying the small birds into mines. If the bird died, the air was bad.Local residents' nerves already were frayed when, on May 11, 2005, a fly ash truck overturned in Nesquehoning, dumping its entire load onto the road and private property.The walk-outIf one single moment characterized public indignation over fly ash intrusion into the community, it was the walk-out.In 2004, DEP Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty appeared at the Tamaqua Area Auditorium for a peace talk.But fly ash hauling and dumping already had become a worry and nuisance, and residents weren't ready to smoke a peace pipe. Many expressed distrust of state government.In fact, critics pointed out that a trend of inadequate government oversight was the reason that contaminated Superfund sites were allowed to be created in the local area in the first place.In a moving moment during McGinty's question and answer session, an 8-year-old child, Peter Baddick, St. Jerome Regional School, asked: "Why are you contaminating my water? I want to live a good life. It could make me sick and die."When it appeared McGinty wouldn't budge, hundreds of frustrated attendees abruptly stood up and marched out of the auditorium in protest. Residents were frustrated over what they felt was an unhealthy development in their midst.The issue sparked a 2004 National Academy of Sciences study on the use of fly ash in landfills.Public outrage and call-to-action over health and safety threats was fueled, additionally, by the emergence of rare cancers popping up among residents, including polycythemia very, a rare blood disease.LCN dissolvesBeset by financial problems, LCN filed for bankruptcy in 2008 after pressure from creditors.In January 2012, the firm sold its assets.The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania approved an agreement between LCN, the DEP and BET Associates IV, LLC, allowing BET to purchase LCN and its debts.The court decision ratified an agreement between LCN and BET reached June 3, 2010. As part of the sale, BET used a credit bid process of approximately $14.8 million in secured claims against LCN. Those claims were satisfied through the sale.In addition to mining the site, BET Associates committed $24.5 million in reclamation bonds and funds to establish a trust to treat the site's acid mine drainage in perpetuity.BET and Robindale Energy Services then created a joint venture, Lehigh Anthracite, in operation today.The fly ash controversy a decade ago sparked public forums, debates, hearings and protests. It drew wide media attention and galvanized the community. It also put focus on a larger issue, the ongoing threat by many forms of toxic dumping.As for fly ash, 140 million tons of coal ash pollution continues to be produced each year, according to the Sierra Club.