semi-anthracite

About 50 miles due west of the Wyoming Valley lies Sullivan County, PA. The areas surrounding Bernice, Mildred and Lopez in that county produced semi-anthracite coal, which is one step down in hardness from anthracite. Semi-anthracite as I understand it has most of the qualities of anthracite but burns a little hotter. I recently passed through this area and saw what appears to be abandoned coal lands. I know that coal from this region until recently was shipped to the NYSEG power plant in Big Flats, New York and to some PA State institutions such as Bloomsburg University.

Does anyone know if there is active mining in Sullivan County? Does anyone have knowledge of semi-anthracite coal reserves there? Does anyone on this forum now burn semi-anthracite?

I thought the old hickling plant was shut down by AES as they were burning lousy poor bituminous coal?

They may have burned bituminous because there were either no semi-anthracite suppliers left or the coal seams were depleted. That's what I'd like to find out.

I had a lot of customers there and they were happy to pay the extra bucks for it. My Uncle most definitely had customers up there when those places were in operation. Not sure if they were when I took over. Having gone by there a few(hundred)times between Lopez and Mildred I've seen what appeared to be activity at that facility on the left right before you get into Mildred if you're coming from Lopez. Nothing to indicate what it was. Haven't been up that way in about 2 years.

we dont know of anything left out that way.........

after riding my harley on the sullivan-braford county wine tour. we seen activity outside of mildred with what looks like new mounds of fresh coal and a new building and trucks on 487. the road from mildred to US 220 has at least one mine with a sign out front with tele numbers . dont know if in operation. friends of mine used to burn coal from here and liked it... so i guess it depends on the mine.... sound familar????? i have some old stuff from there from my railroad when they hauled it to towanda.. may try a test burn later when i take my system down for pm's so ya there is some activity going on there. one rumer flying a year ago that barclay moutain in bradford county( 20 miles from midred} has anthracite 2000 feet down...looking at maybe restarting mining up there,,, the top was taken off for bituminus in the early- mid 80'S....
we are in the bitumanus- semi anthracite region.... and as others on this forum can testify to to there is still some shiny coal in there hills.......

More information coming in. I thought that they stopped mining the Barclay deposit a long time ago. The Barclay was an offshoot of the Bloss coal seams which are (were) semi-bituminous. I'm pretty sure that actual mining of the Bloss seam in Tioga County stopped mid 80's, although Phoenix Resources is supposedly expanding their construction debris landfill near Antrim and pulling out some of the remaining coal. There is a little stub of the Bloss seam currently being mined at English Center North of Williamsport in Lycoming County by the Fisher Mining Co. That coal is trucked to the AES Cayuga Power Plant north of Ithaca.

This is interesting. Here we have semi-bituminous, semi-anthracite and true anthracite with only about a 75 mile separation between them as the crow flies. However there is still no definitive answer as to the nature and extent and current status of the semi-anthracite deposits in Sullivan County.

I live about 10 miles from Hickling Plant. I think NYSEG restarted that plant about a year ago. I will do some checking into this and see if I can find out what their using for fuel there. I do believe though that they did restart operations there. I belong to a Vol. Fire Dept. and remember them have a small fire there a short time ago.

Jeff

I did a litle checking and there is one active permit listed for an "Incidental Coal Extraction" facility at the Mildred #2 Mine. The permit is held by Falcon Coal and Construction Co, Mildred, PA. I don't know exactly what it means, but it is the only active mining permit listed for Sullivan County and it was listed with the Bituminous permits, not the Anthracite permits.

Very interesting. I know for a fact that the coal seams in the Bernice/Mildred/Lopez area are (were) semi-anthracite. Perhaps if it not absolutely true hardness anthracite, it must be listed with the bituminous?

Incidental mining? I've heard of open pit mining, drift mining and deep mining but "incidental" is something new.