A Report from Irondale (Wharton / Mine Hill).
This past Sunday, I saw a drilling rig parked in the woods off the Irondale trail. I guess the Morris County Municipal Ultilities Authority is making good on their $500,000 grant to study the use of the former Scrub Oak Mine for public drinking water storage.
The area was marked-off with many small surveyor flags, but I did not understand what they were demarcating. Do they indicate the assumed northern boundary of the underground workings?
The section of Irondale trail where it meets the powerline r-o-w was bulldozed to allow the drill truck to enter the woods, decimating some of the tailings piles that lay undisturbed for close to 100 years. Fortunately, the Corwin Mine adit was still untouched, but the bulldozer came very close.
Your roving reporter.
_________________ The past is the foundation of the future.
|