vti project i-99., page-27

my understanding from previous article is that it may be road track (instead of dirt road), not railway track

some people may consider tax related timing, interesting to see if the big contract will be signed this fall (US fall) as this would give VTI comfortable enough time to deliver Bauxsol for next spring (again US spring), also timing still may change as we have seen already, lots of politicaly motivated decisions and I-99 project is terribly behind

Posted on Wed, Jun. 08, 2005





Permanent cleanup of I-99 acid rock to wait until at least next spring

From CDT staff reports


HARRISBURG -- Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler told lawmakers Wednesday the state will spend "upwards of $20 million or more" to clean up acid rock at Skytop, but he said permanent remediation, and resumption of highway construction, won't start until at least next spring.

"If you want to hold us to a particular date, please don't," Biehler told a packed legislative hearing room in the state capital. "We need to be careful that we make the right decision."

Biehler, PennDOT Deputy Secretary Gary Hoffman and PennDOT District Executive Kevin Kline told the state House Transportation Committee that they continue to study three possible permanent remediation plans: hauling some of the pyritic rocks to an already permitted fly ash disposal site near Ebensburg; digging a new landfill for it next to the I-99 corridor in Bald Eagle Valley; and treating the spoil piles and fill areas with the cleanup product Bauxsol, the least expensive option.

"We are running down the track like we're planning to use all three of those," Hoffman said. "We know it's going to cost in the tens of millions of dollars."

PennDOT unearthed 918,000 cubic yards of pyrite-laced sandstone in 2003 while making a deep road cut through the Skytop gap in the Bald Eagle Ridge. That material -- enough to fill Beaver Stadium-- was dumped in about a dozen spoil piles and fill areas.

Exposure to oxygen and water oxidizes the pyrite and creates sulfuric acid, which dissolves heavy metals such as iron, aluminum and manganese into contaminants that now threaten Buffalo Run and Bald Eagle Creek and area groundwater supplies.

For more details on Wednesday's committee hearing on the I-99 acid rock problem, see tomorrow's Centre Daily Times.