tool name
closeDEP sets hearings on I-99 cleanup
Environmental regulators Wednesday scheduled two public meetings on the Department of Transportation's plan to ship a million tons of pyritic rocks from Skytop Mountain in Patton Township to an old mine 75 miles away in Indiana County.
The meetings, accompanied by formal hearings, will be held at 6:30 p.m. March 7 at the Pine Township Volunteer Fire Company social hall in Heilwood, Indiana County, and at 6:30 p.m. March 9 at the Park Forest Middle School auditorium in Patton Township.
The Indiana County meeting will address Robindale Energy Services' application for a permit to allow it to take ownership of 675,000 cubic yards of crushed pyritic rocks at Skytop and use 50 trucks, each making three round trips a day for 200 haul days, to move the material to the Indiana County mine site.
The Centre County meeting will address a permit application by PennDOT for cleanup measures it plans to take to treat 400,000 cubic yards of pyritic rocks that will be left at Skytop, to prevent acidic runoff from getting into streams and ground water.
PennDOT has a $26 million contract with Robindale, a Johnstown company, and expects to spend another $14 million to clean up Skytop, on top of $10 million already spent in the past 28 months.
The DEP's announcement indicated that any public concerns about the additional 300 truck trips a day on U.S. Route 220 between Port Matilda and the Blair County village of Bald Eagle would be taken up at the Indiana County meeting.
Indiana County residents who live near the old mine where the pyritic rocks would be taken raised concerns Wednesday about the impact of 300 truck trips a day through their neighborhoods.
"It's going to smash our roads and possibly pollute the streams," said William Orner, a retired steelworker who has lived 55 years at an intersection where the trucks would turn to make the last leg of their haul from Skytop.
DEP spokesman Dan Spadoni said the meetings will begin with presentations from DEP, PennDOT and Robindale that will last an hour in all, followed by an hourlong explanatory question and answer session with residents. Following that will be the formal hearings where public testimony will be taken.
During the hearing phase, residents will be able to talk for five or 10 minutes each at most, depending on how many people register to testify. Registration will be taken at the door ahead of the meeting. Written testimony of any length also will be accepted.
Both permit applications, each about six inches thick, are available for public review at the following locations:
In Centre County: the Willowbank County Office Building, 420 Holmes St., Bellefonte; Patton Township Building, 100 Patton Plaza, State College; Port Matilda Borough Building, 400 S. High St., Port Matilda; and DEP's Moshannon District Mining Office, 186 Enterprise Drive, Philipsburg.
Elsewhere: the Indiana County Conservation District Office, USDA Service Center, 1432 Route 286 Highway East, Indiana; Indiana County Courthouse, 825 Philadelphia St., Indiana; Pine Township Municipal Building, 6410 Route 403 Highway North, Heilwood; DEP's Cambria District Mining Office, 296 Industrial Park Road, Ebensburg; and DEP's Southwest Regional Office, 400 Waterfront Drive, Pittsburgh.
