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river rat: Onyx Beaches
Thru the thirties, forties, and fifties, coal sand mining was a vital industry on the Susquehanna River. The fine, black coal grit was the by product of shaft and strip mining of coal for decades. The coal "dirt" washed out of sluices used to rinse coal during the mining process, then it settled in pockets in the river; very thickly deposited and easily retrieved.
The coal sand is as fine as most sand found on the ocean beaches. It is rich black onyx sparkling in the sun, holding the day's heat well into the night. The uniform texture made it work well in steam generation and home heating and still felt as soft as Gulf Coast beach sand.
Of course, dredging the river is the ecological equivalent of strip mining the surface soils with the added detriment of killing fish directly without having to wait for a rain and sloppy run off to do the job. The process was low tech and had no way to protect the environment of species living in the black silt.
Entire species of eels were wiped out in vast stretches of river such that my generation only heard tell of the quantities fishermen harvested in the past. It was common for eel nets to be set at night and bushels full of mature eels retrieved in the morning, ready to be sold at market the next day. After overfishing and coal dredging operations depleted their numbers, the eel nets were outlawed with penalties for poachers including jail time and fines.
The dredging process was simple and ingenious. A large barge dropped its anchor at the up stream tip of a bed of coal sand. The anchor's cable would pay out until the barge was a certain length downstream within the sand bed's footprint. Next, a large diameter, flexible vacuum tube would be lowered into the water and begin pulling up the silty slurry from the river bottom.
The gloopy mix of silt and coal sand was pulled out of the water in a gray, black, and brown slurry, and then would pass over an array of screens. From there the coal sand was raked by hand from the surface of the final screens while the mud passed through and the muscle shells and any debris were pushed overboard. Meanwhile the steam engine that was generating the vacuum was also operating a winch that pulled the barge slowly upstream further into the coal deposit.
Along side the barge were smaller boats being filled with the coal sand that had been cleaned and screened. The material boats would get three large piles loaded before they made their way to the offloading dock where conveyor belts would drop the sand into trucks. A short trip to the stock yard completed the recovery process of this very efficient way to gather previously mined coal.
Amphibians were displaced severely by the need for cheap coal fuel. Frogs burrowing in the sand for the winter were wiped out when the vacuum drew deep into their hibernation haven. The loss of so many frogs allowed insects to flourish in areas where before their numbers had been kept in natural balance our web footed friends.
In our area the Keller family had been wildly successful at pulling coal out of the river. Each spring Mr. Keller would go up and down the river with a pole, gauging the depth of deposits and mapping out his approach at harvesting the next year's black gold.
My father remembers coal barges moving up and down the shallow channels in the river, but even in his youth the process was on the decline. The rusting hulks of sluicing and dredging operations along with a few dozen barges were all that remained for my generation to see regarding the mechanics of the process.
The huge conveyors rusted solid with crude, decaying rubber belts canting upwards to the top of a black pyramid of sand made for fantastic playgrounds. We'd sit in the rusted out control cabins of the sluices and small cranes that were north of town and pretend we were the operators, shouting out commands and screaming for delivery quotas.
"More sand, you slackers!" we'd yell over the imaginary clank and clutter of wheels and gears and cogs. "Suck that sand."
The barges were sitting around the small pyramids of coal sand at all angles, jostled into their positions by spring time high waters and left for salvage by river rats who appreciated the thick oak slabs that made up the hulls.
My brothers made different styles of gothic coffee tables out of one of the solid, four inch thick slabs using salvaged porch post turnings for fat, squat legs. Dad made several indestructible work surfaces out of bits and pieces of the same slab.
The best thing about coal sand mining was that it stopped. The river has since recovered from that man made peril only have faced the next few decades of strip mining run-off which rendered it almost toxic in parts during the sixties and very early seventies. The past twenty five years have seen the river recover well from the torment of mining.
The second best by product of that process was the creation of onyx black beaches at the tips of most islands.
My memories of the onyx beaches begin early on with army men battling fierce wars under the first cabin our family had on an island north of town. Epic battles of troops made up from conscripts of WWI, WWII, and Revolutionary war action figures went on beneath the short piers on which our cabin stood.
The sand beneath the cabin was rich black with flecks of grey sand mixed in. GI Joe held his own against an army of Barbie dolls mutated with the bodies of mismatched doll parts. At his command Joe had two generations of plastic army snipers, cowboys, Indians, nurses, and doctors along with an assortment of dinosaurs. Command posts behind mussel shells called out Joe's troops to storm Barbie's mongrel horde with barrages of smooth river stones. Barbie never had a chance. I mean, really. Joe was a professional soldier after all.
The coal sand was surprisingly clean and didn't stain or leave dirt per se on skin or clothing. It was sand, however, and because it was black it showed up where it lay on one's skin. Playing in it was just like playing in any other sand though, and for small kids on an island, sand was sand.
As I got older and was allowed to go out night fishing with my oldest brother I learned that most of the southern tips of islands were depositories for black coal sand. The dredging process had nothing to do with the deposits. The island tips were leftovers from when the mining operations used the river upstream to clean out the rock coal.
The island beaches were perfect for night fishing as the waters from each side of the island would usually create a deep channel where catfish, chain pickerel and the few eels that remained would feed at night.
During the day the sun would heat up the full depth of the black sand so that the first hours of the evening the beach would radiate warmth on cold bottoms as fish were coaxed to join us for the following evening's dinner.
As I got older and was able to go out on the river with my peers I discovered a world of black sand sunbathing and lounging about that will always bring a smile to my face. Even early in spring it was possible to catch a serious ray in the cold northern climate if the sun was gracious enough to heat up a few inches of sand on which to bathe. During the summer the sand provided a fantastic place to sleep through the cool nights to catch a jump on the next day's fishing.
My brother coaxed several young girls to sunbathe topless on the onyx beaches of the Susquehanna only to come back to shore with tales of surprised fishermen and even more surprised bathing beauties exposed dramatically against a shimmering, black backdrop.
Writing these words I long for the gritty black sand of an onyx beach between my toes and vow to make a pilgrimage to the tip of an island soon. Sooner, rather than later, I promise.
Hmmm. Now where did I leave those army men?
