'Paragon Affiliates' Land Grab
S. F. Payer, 11/30/2002
An out-of-region entity, the Philadelphia area based 'Paragon Affiliates', has chosen to disrupt and destroy a portion of our reforesting Schuylkill and Luzerne Counties. The area in question is shown on the three maps below. That land has lain quiet and fallow now for almost a century after it was stripped of lumber and mined out in the early part of the 20th Century. The Green Mountain and Audenreid mine drainage tunnels located there for two distinct mine systems provide a special view of old-time deep mining coal works. One can stand outside the tunnel portals on a hot July day and enjoy a refreshing flow of mine-cool air. Left alone, the area had become an isolated, naturally sheltered preserve for black bears and a number of other shy, scarce fauna. It is the headwaters of the once clean and beautiful Catawissa Creek.
That stream had been a bountiful source of trout and shad until about 1880.Endnote1 For well over a hundred years since, the Catawissa has been polluted by mine acid from the outflow of the tunnels. Those unfortunate waters have also been the main sewage receptacle for the borough of McAdoo, PA, that practice having been much in vogue in the bygone days of the heedless Coal Operator absentee landlords. Fortunately, since about the 1970s, late-dawning national and state environmental awareness has forced McAdoo and other regional small towns to provide adequate modern sewage treatment facilities. McAdoo finally got around to this in 2004 but it'll still be several years until the town's reconnection to the new facilities is complete. Paragon subscribers see it as great sport to drive gas-guzzling Humvees, SUVs and all kinds of expensive 4WD vehicles right up the middle of this nascent small river. We can only wonder if these fun loving rovers realize what they have been up to their axles in. Let us hope they've been packing antiseptic disinfectants in their emergency first-aid kits.
The claim might be made that our genteel, comfortably suburbanite Road Warriors have the right to do as they please with the land ... and that their activities are 'monitored' as long as they pay the price of admission to private property. The claim is spurious and unrealistic: Unconcerned with real conservation, once these folks are off on their own they can ride roughshod over whatever gets in their way. After all, that's supposed to be the challenge of this sort of peculiar behavior, the real reason for the primly named adventure park. The oddly skewed notion of driving vehicles in a polluted stream and rancid, streamside muck is spectacularly peculiar. Perhaps it adds a small element of personal risk to an otherwise machine-against-nature, somewhat less than extreme 'sport'. We would hope the riders continue to perform a fecal coliform count on their vehicles after a happy day's outing ... or else apply for one of the World Wide Web's Darwin Awards.
The custom and clientele of such latter day easy adventurers is obviously not local. Equipage and vehicle maintenance for their pampered, costly off-road vehicles is cost prohibitive for the general run of the minimum-to-average wage scale nearby. For another, the local woodsmen and hunters know better than to romp in that creek. The activity is a curious spectacle of frivolous and wasteful silliness, especially as the cost of gasoline continually rises and available hydrocarbon fuel sources remain in the hands of foreign suppliers.
So now, again we see the land mined and exploited for exclusively foreign profit as it was in the days of the old Coal Barons, now with the added modern touch of wasteful, gas guzzling, sporting machines. But this time it is mined now for adolescent thrills, by a crowd of rambling, enviro-challenged sports from afar, who have no stake in the region's welfare nor an eye to the clean water and energy needs of the future. Sadly, as was all too evident here in the Coal Region in the past, it needs very little private investment to take from the region. As usual, it will be left to the taxpaying residents, scores of decades of time, and the undisturbed work of Nature to put it all back
At long last, under pressure from the state, the Borough of McAdoo has built a sewage disposal plant. The leached mine acid in the stream is slowly dissipating through the simple passage of time. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is attempting to remedy the acidic PH of the Lehigh River watershed by means of slurry towers and diversion wells, although there is no indication that these techniques have been tried at the headwaters of the Catawissa. This stream may once again harbor trout and other game fish if it is adequately revived, protected, stocked and nurtured. Now is not the time to abdicate responsibility for the Catawissa and surrounding watershed woodland. Clean water, vehicle fuel and an undisturbed watershed are valuable resources now, and will grow ever more so in the future.
Hunters, potential fishermen, true conservationists and all lovers of peaceful woodland please take note.
Then take action. The issue demands State supervision.
Let's
Make It a State Park
Or at least a State Gameland
Overview: The area in question is roughly a parallelogram between Sheppton, 'Pismire Ridge' and 'Round Head'. Part accessible near the Humboldt Warehouse Park. This was once called the old 'Green Mountain Mines', 'Hunky-Dory', #8 and others.
Terrain View: Paragon and the Bonner properties in dispute over the bounds between the pink and yellow shaded areas.
Detailed View: Most of the beautiful, reforested, second or third growth woodland is centered around the Wolfe's Farm, near the old mine drainage tunnels. The disputed upper reaches of the 'Paragon Estate', close by the Bonner property at Mt. Pleasant Reservoir, are across the Luzerne County boundary. This portion consists more of once devastated mine country, Honeybrook-Audenreid #5, lately beginning to reforest. It has alwas been a good source of mushrooms and huckleberries. The Catawissa Creek, once a trout and shad stream, here is a sewage creek (the 'Shitcrick'), hopefully now finally to be cleaned up as McAdoo gets a sewage disposal plant.
Endnote1: See this area as it was long ago as Torbert and Girard Manor in the East Union Twp. part of the history of Klein Twp. page.
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Other Links of Interest The
Eastern Middle Anthracite Region 11/19/2003 Regional
Topographical & Street Maps 11/19/2003
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