SHENANDOAH’S CENTRALIA MOMENT: A look back at the Kehley Run mine fire (Part 4)
SHENANDOAH – When mine fires come up, the six-decade plight of a Columbia County borough is often top-of-mind, as is the misconception driven by said plight that mine fires are an unstoppable force.
As the Centralia Mine Fire saga began, a lesser-known mine fire was raging and threatening what was at the time one of Schuylkill County’s largest communities and economic hubs, yards away from a grocery store and the town’s Little League ballfield.
The sounds of mining equipment digging, blasting, and removing the side of Locust Mountain were as common as the sulfuric fumes of Anthracite coal aflame as scaffolding secured the side of a main regional thoroughfare.
This is part four of our look back at “The Big Dig,” or “Operation Scarlift,” that many of our region’s older residents remember. This is the story of the Kehley Run Mine Fire in the extreme northeast of Shenandoah.
Finally, a final solution
Finally, on June 5, 1969, state and federal officials announced they would, for the first time since the mine fire broke out, tackle the blaze head-on and dig it out.
The project would cost $7 Million ($56,764,453.55 today) and remove the Little League field, but homes and the Genetti supermarket would be saved.
It would take three years, officials said at the time.
Work was set to begin on Nov. 1, 1969, but one of the impacted land owners, the D&S Coal Company, owned by Daniel and Stanley Maksimik, refused to provide a release, delaying the effort.
Eventually, in February of 1970, the state Department of Mines condemned the D&S-owned lands.
As the state advertised for bids for the project, the Maksimiks filed suit, alleging they were being deprived of their right to sell the coal beneath their lands. The lawsuit delayed the opening of said bids. The lawsuit was dismissed by Schuylkill County Court in May, but the Maksimiks appealed the decision, further delaying excavation work.
Meanwhile, Shenandoah Valley High School students began to call for an immediate end to the blaze, citing air pollution concerns.
Organized as “Students Organized Against Pollution” or SOAP, the students gathered over 3,500 signatures on a petition, asking state and federal officials to take further action.
As the Maksimik lawsuit made its way to the state Supreme Court, those students hand-delivered their petition to Governor Raymond Shafer in Harrisburg.
An agreement was reached between the state and the Maksimiks in August, paving the way for a Fall 1970 start to the excavation project.
By the time bids were received, the project’s cost increased to $9,735,000 ($73,707,112.12 today).
Officials signed the contract Sept. 23 with the No. 1 Contracting Company, which the Herald called a “historic event.”
1.1 Million cubic yards of culm bank material would be removed, followed by 4.3 Million of rock and dirt to dig the underground fire out.
The company would then level out the ground to be even with Washington Street which, the Herald reported would create “a large area of attractive and useful land for civic development.”
Burning material would be dumped in the abandoned, water-filled Shen-Penn stripping pit.
The Herald said when the project started on Nov. 3, 1970, that it was the nation’s largest and most-expensive project of its kind at the time.
As crews worked, dust created an additional nuisance in town, prompting the Shenandoah Medical Society to declare an air pollution health emergency on March 10, 1971. Doctors at the Locust Mountain Hospital worried about health risks associated with the dust and fine silt coming from the site and asked for the prohibition of work on days when wind would carry dust and fumes towards populated areas.
The dust also blanketed cars atop Locust Mountain, such as at the Evening Herald building on Ringtown Boulevard.
“It hasn’t been pleasant living in Shenandoah since the Kehley Run mine fire excavation started, but most residents have been patient in the realization that they must endure some dust if the fire is to be extinguished,” the Herald wrote in a March 27, 1971 editorial.
Blasting also created a nuisance, with the Herald saying a boulder landed in their parking lot at one point, and covering Route 924 in rocks at times. Several homeowners, both nearby and as far away as North Jardin Street, reported structural damage as a result of the blasts.
By September of 1971, the project was 30% complete.
Tragedy nearly struck on Sept. 13, when Joseph DeLuca’s dump truck, hauling material to dump into the Shen-Penn, crashed into the water-filled pit.
DeLuca was rescued from the pit by crews using a power boat borrowed from Ringtown Farm Equipment Co., and treated at the scene by Dr. Stanley Stanulonis from Locust Mountain Hospital. He was taken to said hospital by Phoenix Community Ambulance for treatment of serious injuries.
In March of 1972, the rock wall against Locust Mountain threatened to pull down Route 924, prompting PennDOT to install steel I-Beams upright alongside the highway.
By mid-1972, Mayor Gerald Mulhall suggested using seismographs to register the intensity of blasting and its impacts on residents homes, after a “deluge” of complaints from residents.
In January of 1973, five workers were burned when a blast sent burning debris flying. Those five were: Robert McAndrew, Gordon; Anthony Scarcella, Hazleton; Sal Corrado, Hazleton; James McAndrew, Gordon; and Kenneth Breinich, Raven Run.
In April, another blast sent a large rock flying, striking a Volkwagen Beetle in the parking lot of the Acme, formerly Genetti’s, supermarket, and damaging two other vehicles.
Also that month, fire wrecked the mobile office of the project’s contractor.
As the pit grew, it became known as the “Grand Canyon of Shenandoah.”
By mid-1976, the pit was backfilled, and the fire was out.
TOMORROW: What Next?
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