Water recovering from acid runoff

By Mike Joseph

PATTON TOWNSHIP — Almost five years after state officials became aware of the water supply threat at the Interstate 99 construction site at Skytop, they reported signs of improvement in wells and a stream on Thursday.

“If anything, they’re looking a little better,” said state hydrogeologist Randy Farmerie, referring to home wells of Patton Township residents near the road excavation site. “We’re certainly not seeing any signs of additional degradation.”

The remarks of state road builders and environmental regulators did not amount to a sweeping projection of long-term success of the costly environmental cleanup measures completed or under way.

But Farmerie, water quality specialist John Sengle and PennDOT environmental consultant Marv Klinger were consistent in descriptions of stable or reduced impact in various locations around the sprawling cleanup site.

The $80 million Skytop cleanup project ranges from the 1.4-mile section of I-99 on the Buffalo Run side of the Bald Eagle Ridge in Patton Township to a disposal pit for more than a million tons of pyritic rocks three miles west on the Bald Eagle Creek side in Worth Township.

The rocks, when unearthed abruptly in massive amounts as they were at Skytop, react with water and oxygen in the air to produce metal-dissolving sulfuric acid.

Runoff flows to a treatment tank from a drainage system under the disposal site have been reduced from 2,500 gallons a day to 700 gallons a day since the pit was closed and sealed, said Ben LaParne, PennDOT assistant district executive.

Sengle said Bald Eagle Creek inspections showed water quality consistent with the quality before work on the disposal site began 18 months ago.

He said Buffalo Run, which had been reddening with iron deposits as recently as a few of months ago, has improved. “It does visibly look better than it did three, four weeks ago,” Sengle said. “Right now it seems to be looking a little better.”

Environmental regulators measure the level of the threat to water by counting sulfates, or sulfuric acid salts. If the sulfate level in a home’s well water reaches 250 parts per million, the state must provide bottled water or a treatment system.

Klinger said surface water sulfate levels have decreased to about 70 parts per million.

Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.