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Conklin Requests Water for Skytop: State College System Could Get Extended to Serve Affected Homes

Posted on: Friday, 7 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Mike Joseph, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

Apr. 7--PATTON TOWNSHIP -- With the PennDOT chief set to address the public on the acid-rock drainage at Skytop Monday, county and municipal officials have revived the idea of extending the State College water system to affected well users.

County Commissioner Scott Conklin this week asked state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty to see that state money be used to extend State College Borough Water Authority lines to 30 or so Skytop-area residents whose private wells are threatened.

And Patton Township Manager Doug Erickson has met with water authority Executive Director Max Gill to get estimates of how much such an extension would cost. Gill gave Erickson three scenarios that ranged from roughly $1 million to $5 million, depending on the extent of the area that would be connected.

Conklin's letter to McGinty cited DEP-approved state and federal money to extend water lines to residents in Indiana and Clearfield counties whose well water was degraded by acid mine drainage.

In Clearfield County's Bradford Township, the DEP recently completed two projects at a cost of $551,000 to extend water lines to residents in the midst of abandoned mines.

In the Nowrytown area of Indiana County's Conemaugh Township, about 90 homes will get clean water with the help of a $292,000 state grant announced by Gov. Ed Rendell two weeks ago that will enable the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County to buy about two miles of pipe and other materials.

Three years ago, the DEP completed a 17-mile water line in Clearfield County's Bradford and Boggs townships, using about $2 million in state Growing Greener money to provide water to hundreds of residents who had gone without a reliable water supply since the 1970s due to mining activity.

Conklin told McGinty that these acid mine drainage cases are "similar situations" to the water impairment from the acid-rock drainage from the Interstate 99 construction at Skytop. But DEP spokesman Kurt Knaus said Thursday there is a difference.

"In all of these cases, federal funds were used to provide water supplies for residents affected by abandoned mine drainage where there was no identifiable responsible party," Knaus said. "With Skytop, there is a responsible party" -- PennDOT.

Department of Transportation spokeswoman Marla Fannin said the subject of state funding for a State College water system extension has not been discussed in any detail recently but may come up in questions Monday when Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler addresses the public in the Park Forest Middle School auditorium.

Knaus said the DEP has identified 134 private residential wells near the construction zone and, in 27 months, has taken more than 1,800 water samples from them. Seven of the wells have been contaminated by acid-rock drainage to the point where public drinking water standards have been exceeded, he said.

Depending upon homeowner preference, Knaus said, either bottled drinking water or a water-treatment system has been provided by PennDOT.

Water in four of these seven wells now meets public drinking water standards, he said, but treatment systems remain in place in these four homes.

"Because the last of these seven adverse impacts occurred in 2004, we believe that the interim measures the DEP directed PennDOT to implement are performing effectively," Knaus said. "We further believe that all of the impacted wells will clean themselves of the effects of acid-rock drainage once the waste rock piles have been relocated to a water-tight repository."

Mike Joseph can be reached at 235-3910.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

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Source: Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.)

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