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Streets in McDonald that had been covered by water flowing at 10,000 gallons per minute were dry Thursday after workers installed two pumps to drain water gushing from an abandoned coal mine.

McDonald Mayor Jim Frazier said a 12-inch pipe and 8-inch hose channeled the water about a quarter mile, from the 100 block of Liberty Street into Robinson Run near the municipal building. The system can handle about 7,500 gallons per minute, more than the current rate of the leak.

He said the borough was considering canceling the state of emergency declared Tuesday night, when volunteer firefighters lined Liberty and McDonald streets with sandbags to protect homes from the rushing waters.

"There's no real emergency," Frazier said. "We're stabilized. We pretty much have the water off the road surface."

State Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Helen Humphreys-Short said officials estimate it will take two to four weeks for the heavy flow from the mine to stop or stabilize. Even then, the flow could be as much as 400 gallons per minute.

She said workers from the DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation will go into the mine next week to determine whether the water can be directed to other drainage points and not into the town.

"We're looking to completely eliminate the water from McDonald," Humphreys-Short said.

She said the DEP does not anticipate any problem getting federal money to do the work, although a cost estimate will not be available until a course of action is determined.

Frazier said the flow from the mine caused storm sewers to collapse and severely damaged Liberty and McDonald streets.

A slow leak from the ground along Liberty Street turned into a torrent around noon Tuesday when a contractor began excavating the spot to determine the root of the problem.

According to the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Web site, the defunct Nickle Plate mine, the source of the deluge, is not among the 51 sites in Pennsylvania that have been identified as a "dangerous impoundment." Such sites are among the top priorities of the abandoned mine land program, which uses money from a tax on coal production to repair damage or prevent potential problems caused by abandoned mines.

The Web site says 47 of those mines have been corrected or funding for repairs has been approved.

People in areas threatened by events such as the mine flood in McDonald qualify for state mine subsidence insurance, which costs less than $1 annually per $1,000 of insurance, with a discount for people older than 65. DEP officials who set up shop in the McDonald Borough building said about 65 residents had applied for the insurance by yesterday afternoon.

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