DOT, DEP to answer questions at meeting

mjoseph@centredaily.com

PATTON TOWNSHIP -- State road builders and environmental regulators next week will make public presentations and take questions on the state's $40 million plan for a permanent cleanup of the acid-rock drainage hazard at Skytop Mountain.

The presentations and questions from the public will be the most important agenda item at the Patton Township supervisors' regular meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the township building, 100 Patton Plaza, near the intersection of Valley Vista Drive and North Atherton Street.

Township manager Tom Kurtz said Thursday that notices of Wednesday's agenda item have been sent to the neighborhoods near Skytop whose water has had increased levels of contaminants since the state Department of Transportation unearthed a million cubic yards of pyritic rocks in 2003 during construction of Interstate 99.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has scheduled a March 7 meeting in Indiana County's Pine Township and a March 9 meeting at the Park Forest Middle School auditorium in Patton Township in connection with environmental permit applications required for the cleanup.

But aside from that formal DEP permit approval process, Wednesday's Patton Township meeting is the only opportunity scheduled so far for the public to hear firsthand from the state agents who have devised the cleanup plan.

PennDOT organized an invitation-only meeting at Patton Township's municipal building on Monday afternoon, and another in Hollidaysburg Monday evening. Centre County news organizations were not invited. PennDOT held a news conference about its plan Tuesday morning in Hollidaysburg.

Patton Township's meeting Wednesday will be televised live on C-Net, Centre County's government and education access network.

Elliot Abrams, township supervisor chairman, said supervisors decided to have the meeting for township residents who may want to express views on whether township money should be spent for the benefit of residents affected by acid drainage or for a ClearWater Conservancy campaign to preserve land from development.

ClearWater has asked Patton Township for $30,000 to help pay for the conservation group's planned $2.2 million purchase of 423 acres between state Route 45 and the top of Tussey Mountain in Ferguson Township.

"We are looking for opinions," Abrams said Thursday.

Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.