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AMD&ART is a collaborative group that looks to art for long lasting solutions to local problems. They are a Washington DC and Pennsylvania based group that brings local participation to the design and construction of public artworks that also serve as Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) treatment systems.

“When I first started this project, I called it the ‘Art Thing,’ ” says founder T. Allan Comp, “purposefully refusing to define it, searching to find a way to destabilize negative expectations with large scale artful new public spaces that would directly address the major environmental problem in the region”.

AMD&ART, Acid Mine Drainage in Blacklick Creek, PA (photo: Ellen Micoli)
AMD&ART transforms polluted land into “educational, park-like community landscapes” in small Appalachian coal mining communities. Bright orange mine discharge (that used to pollute local rivers) now passes through ponds with crushed limestone that neutralizes the PH and helps leach out metals and other pollutants. The whole system forms the backbone of a large public park that empties into an educational wetland area which refers to local coal mining history and further purifies the water.

The AMD&ART team consists of artists, scientists, historians, engineers and landscape architects who work directly with the communities served by these projects. This is a type of Land Art, rich in metaphor, linked to local history with a concious environmental and social utility.
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AMD&ART, Treatment System From Above, Vintondale, PA, 2000 (photo: Ellen Micoli)














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AMD&ART, Site Plan, Vintondale, PA, 2000 (photo: AMD&ART)