Proposed road link hits a rock

BELLEFONTE -- The state Department of Transportation said Monday that it has changed its design for a high-speed interstate interchange just east of Bellefonte to avoid encountering pyrite, the mineral that has led to a costly environmental cleanup at Skytop Mountain.

The design change for the seamless link between Interstates 99 and 80 in Marion, Spring and Boggs townships moves the interchange closer to Nittany Creek, reduces the dig by up to 400,000 cubic yards of earth and calls for the use of retaining walls as opposed to hillside excavation, PennDOT spokeswoman Marla Fannin said.

Two years ago, then-PennDOT District Executive George Khoury said the same formation of pyrite-laced sandstone found at Skytop during I-99 construction had been found at the site of the high-speed interchange.

He said then that PennDOT would "tighten the cut and fill areas" to reduce the impact of interchange construction on the pyrite seam.

Further details of the changes have emerged as PennDOT surveys the land and drills core borings to design the project.

Fannin said PennDOT intends to bid the $80 million high-speed interchange in December 2008.

The $40 million local interchange between Jacksonville Road and I-80 at Shay Lane is scheduled to be bid at the end of this year, Fannin said.

The high-speed interchange will be built generally in the same areas as the existing interchange between I-80 and state Route 26 (old I-80 Exit 24).

The projects will change traffic patterns in the area, Fannin said. Jacksonville Road, the main road through Marion Township, now intersects with state Route 26.

But with the new interchanges, access to Jacksonville Road will be through the Shay Lane interchange with I-80.

The high-speed interchange design changes will not result in significant construction costs savings, Fannin said Monday. But she said that "avoiding an encounter of pyritic material, and the potential for acidic drainage, is of great value."

PennDOT said it has spent $10 million so far trying to keep acidic drainage from flowing into streams and ground water from a million cubic yards of pyritic rocks that were unearthed during a road cut through the Bald Eagle Ridge at Skytop.

A month ago, the state set forth a $40 million plan for a permanent cleanup at Skytop that included trucking two thirds of the excavated material to an abandoned coal mine in Indiana County 75 miles away.

The clock started on the plan with the filing of two permit applications to the state Department of Environmental Protection on Jan. 31.

But on Thursday PennDOT retreated from overwhelming opposition in Indiana County, canceled two DEP meetings scheduled for this week and said it was rethinking its decision on where to dispose of the rocks.

Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.