Search goes on at PennDOT’s Shohola Stockpile site

By SANDY LONG

SHOHOLA, PA — Officials gathered again on November 13 at the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) lands formerly used as a stockpile site by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) for the past 40 years. The purpose for this most recent excavation was to investigate charges that hazardous materials such as herbicides and pesticides remain buried at the site.

An ongoing cleanup of the site has been underway since June, as PennDOT prepares to relinquish the site to the PGC, following expiration of PennDOT’s lease in July 2007. Years of dumping have resulted in the need for extensive cleanup efforts.

Officials from PennDOT, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the PGC, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, the Pike County Conservation District and Shohola Township observed the excavation being performed by PennDOT’s environmental consultants, Skelly and Loy, Inc.

According to PennDOT’s Community Relations Coordinator, Karen Dussinger, this most recent excavation did not unearth anything unusual. “Dennis Giordano, our assistant district executive for maintenance, reported that after digging several 12-foot pits where it was indicated that dumping was likely to have occurred, the consultants found nothing but a small piece of guiderail,” she noted.

Richard Fetzger, the EPA’s Region III on-scene coordinator, said that water and sediment samples, as well as soil samples were collected and will be analyzed for the presence of herbicides, pesticides, semi-volatile organics and metals. Results are expected in approximately one month.

Initial cleanup at the site has yielded oil-impacted soil, paint drums from linepainting operations with partially-hardened paint in some, 150 crushed empty drums and 5 drums filled with liquid asphalt, scrap metal, items such as tire chains, guiderail, broken culvert pipes, broken snow plow blades, wooden guiderail posts, wood debris, mounds of mulch, 1,000 tons of asphalt, 11 tons of asphalt tar blocks (unused oil-based solid blocks of asphalt used for crack sealing), refrigerators, stoves and household trash such as bottles, cans and toys, an empty backpack herbicide tank sprayer and 250 tires, according to a PennDOT District 4-0 fact sheet released on October 29.

Cleanup of the site is ongoing. Costs to date are approximately $480,000.