In 2008, Wildlands Conservancy worked to construct a passive AMD treatment system in Carbon County near the border with Luzerne County for approximately $400,000. The Buck Mountain #2 Tunnel contributes very high levels of aluminum, iron, manganese and acidity to Buck Mountain Creek, a tributary to the Lehigh River. Shortly after the system was started for the first time, a residence down the hill started experiencing additional water on the property and the system was shut down for fear of property damage. It was refurbished only a few years later to fix the leak and begin treating the AMD again.
The project came out of a study that Wildlands started in 1998 to characterize the abandoned mine drainage impacts to the Lehigh River. The current project uses a passive system which replaced an earlier system that mechanically-added powdered limestone.
