I-99 plan approved

STATE COLLEGE -- State Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty on Thursday announced approval of the Transportation Department's blueprint for cleaning up acid-rock drainage at Skytop, showing up in person to declare that the DEP "has a very high level of confidence" in the plan.

PennDOT officials said they would start work today to dig a pit in Worth Township for a million tons of pyrite-laced rocks from the Interstate 99 construction site. PennDOT said it would do construction work of some type all winter in an effort to hit its target to open I-99 in May or June 2008.

At Skytop Thursday, PennDOT began taking delivery of $4 million worth of high-density plastic liners that will be one of four layers of long-lasting tarps to keep the rain off seven locations of pyritic fill that will not be moved.

McGinty, joining state engineers and hydrogeologists at their regular meeting, called DEP's approval of PennDOT's plan an "important milestone" in the cleanup work. The work began in some respects three years ago when DEP employees commuting to Philipsburg noticed acid-red water running out of Skytop waste piles.

The DEP approval allows PennDOT to:

u Truck a million tons of pyritic rocks from the Buffalo Run side of Skytop to an "engineered rock placement area" three miles away, just east of Port Matilda, along an already paved section of I-99.

u Mix the pyritic rock with a neutralizing agent -- limestone kiln dust that will be trucked from a quarry near Pleasant Gap.

u Construct a pit that will be double-lined with high-density plastic and enhanced by a leak-detection and leak-collection system to prevent acidic discharges.

u Cover the filled pit with another high-density plastic cap that will both keep the rain out and allow grass to grown on top.

u Collect water that has contacted pyritic rock and haul it to a treatment plant. "There will be no discharge of this water to Bald Eagle Creek for a period of at least two years," the DEP said in a prepared statement.

u Monitor surface and groundwater indefinitely to ensure no impacts are occurring.

"The department has a very high level of confidence in the plan that has been proposed," McGinty told PennDOT and DEP officials and others Thursday. "We are able today to take the step of approving the application ... to remove the materials and safely and permanently store those materials in a way that the public and the environment fully will be protected."

McGinty said temporary measures now in place to control runoff "have started to show that they are indeed temporary" and that Buffalo Run aquatic life does not become normal until seven-eighths of a mile downstream of Skytop.

DEP officials "know that we have to get on with it," she said. "We have seen a downward movement in the water quality at the ground water level."

Tucker Ferguson, the PennDOT official overseeing the cleanup, said PennDOT has been "ramping up" in anticipation of DEP approval. "We probably will begin work (Friday)," he said.

Meeting host Max Gill, executive director of the State College Borough Water Authority, told McGinty that "I'm glad we're moving forward on a final solution." He said the two-lane U.S. Route 220 is "currently a dangerous highway" and added that the cleanup plan "may not be perfect, but it's time to put it to rest."

Not everyone agreed. As McGinty departed the meeting, saying "on the road again" as she left, retired Huston Township schoolteacher Nancy Bachman handed her a statement of disagreement that said "we know that eventually it will fail."

Bachman, who helped gather more than 3,000 petition signatures in opposition to the plan, said in an interview later that she fears what could happen over the long term, especially if environmental laws that are now in place are not enforced.

"I don't think, frankly, it will last forever," Bachman said. "We need some kind of protection for existing laws that are protecting the environment."

Dan Spadoni, DEP northcentral region spokesman, said that Centre County commissioners and Worth Township supervisors had been invited to Thursday's meeting and none attended. State Sen. Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, and state Rep. Mike Hanna, D-Lock Haven, did not attend but sent representatives.

PennDOT has estimated the cost of the moveable-rock cleanup at $26 million and the cost to clean up what remains at Skytop at $14 million. About $10 million has been spent on temporary measures. This $50 million cleanup pricetag is in addition to the original $39.4 million road-building contract with HRI Inc., of State College.

The road building began with excavation in late 2002. By late 2003, more than 3.5 million cubic yards of earth and rocks had been dug up. About a million cubic yards of that total came from a vein of sandstone laced with iron sulfide, or iron pyrite. The mineral, when exposed to air and water, creates metal-dissolving sulfuric acid.

PennDOT halted construction in March 2004 to give full attention to resolving the environmental problem posed by the massive pyritic rock piles.

"There's a lot of work to keep that stuff from getting into the creek, and we're doing it," Anthony Poy, PennDOT inspector at Skytop, said Thursday.

At the cleanup site Thursday, Poy watched as a work crew unloaded huge rolls of liner material that will be part of the long-term job of keeping the rain and snow off the rocks. Three tractor-trailers full of the liner rolls arrived Thursday.

"I can tell you one thing," Poy said. "There's a lot more tractor-trailers coming than this."

Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.