Description
A $17.5 million battle is on to extinguish a massive coal refuse fire. No one is quite sure how the fire was started, but for days, it left Mount Carmel Township, Pa., under smoke.
On Oct. 26, a disaster emergency was declared because of smoke from a waste coal fire. The smoke has since cleared, but the fire burns on.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has allocated $17.5 million in federal abandoned-mine reclamation funding to pay a contractor to “excavate and extinguish” the fire.