PA Legislators and DEP Tour North East to Learn How Their Decisions Affect Local Development

On Monday morning, PA State Senator Dan Laughlin, State Representative Jake Banta and members of the PA Department of Environmental Protection toured several North East locations; the new football field at the North East School District, the North East Community Marina and the planned location of a Sheetz gas station at the I90 and Route 20 interchange. The tour had been arranged by Nick Mobilia of Arrowhead Winery for the purpose of showing the DEP how decisions made by their department can lead to major and often adverse consequences for the entire North East community. The thought was, having legislators, the DEP and community members trying to solve the problems, together in one place could speed up the process of finding solutions that work for everyone.

School district water retention requirements

At the school district, the group was first shown two existing retention ponds on the way to the football field, where they were joined by Superintendent Michele Hartzell, Business Manager Jeff Fox and Maintenance Supervisor William Wingerter who, together with Nick Mobilia, explained how additional DEP water retention requirements during field construction were totally unnecessary because of the high capacity water controls already in place. These requirements added approximately $500,000 to the cost of the project. After seeing the current system, DEP Regional Director Erin Wells agreed the added requirements seemed excessive though she was unsure exactly why the decision did not take into account the existing infrastructure.

North East Community Marina

The next stop was the North East Community Marina where board members Amy Burniston, Ed Mascharka and Tim Truitt explained the history of the marina and how the court mandated sand movement, along with the new DEP requirements for moving dredged material from the basin to a landfill, result in combined costs of approximately $800,000 annually which cannot be supported by the marina operations. Burniston explained how previous testing of sand from the marina basin had shown contaminants to be well within acceptable ranges and very similar to what is found in the lake itself. PA DEP requirements also stand in contrast to what is required in Ohio and New York. The group explained in great detail the many benefits of the marina to, not only the North East community, but to the entire region while current DEP requirements pile on additional costs to the point where, if unsolved, put the future of the marina in doubt. It was also explained how the Army Corps of Engineers had previously suggested multiple methods to deal with the sand issue and needs to be part of any potential solution overall.

Potential Sheetz at Interstate 90 and Route 20

The last of the three stops was the proposed location of a new Sheetz and here, to no one’s surprise, the land is contaminated because it had been used as a truck stop and gas station for over 60 years. During initial planning stages Sheetz had agreed to clean up the site, something they had experience with because of the many locations they had developed elsewhere. Unfortunately, during negotiations, DEP requirements and permitting seemed to be sufficient to make Sheetz pull back. This was explained to the DEP and Mobilia presented them with a fact sheet outlining estimates of lost tax revenue to the state and local governments totaling in the millions of dollars based on projections provided by Sheetz. There is also the loss of a projected 65 jobs along with a great deal of further development in the interchange area which would occur if Sheetz developed this property. It was pointed out that stopping development isn’t an environmental fix, while the DEP working with and encouraging the developers benefits everyone.

Kammy Halterman, Environmental Program manager for the DEP, explained what they were currently doing on the site, including the news they had found new contaminants, but she said they were surprised when Sheetz walked away since they had worked with them on many other projects. They didn’t believe they had done anything different in this case, but evidently Sheetz didn’t agree.

Moving forward

In all of these cases, the various parties had taken on projects intending to benefit the North East community only to face push back due to costly and prohibitive requirements from the DEP. It quickly became apparent phone calls and emails were no substitute for face to face meetings. In all of these situations, there was a breakdown in communications, unnecessary red tape and delays which potentially cost millions of dollars. From the perspective of the DEP, they were doing their jobs, while from North East’s perspective it seemed they wanted to stop all development here. Having everyone standing together on the actual land affected by their decisions, made the problem real to those who might not often see the results of their demands and requirements.

Senator Laughlin and Representative Banta both said they would help to get everyone necessary together for meetings where decisions could be made about solutions. For the marina, the Army Corps of Engineers would be included. For the Sheetz location, representatives of the company would be involved. The idea is for everyone to sit down, decide what to do and get moving. All of us in North East want the multiple projects we see beginning to continue on and be successful. North East is so full of potential, we all need to keep working to make it happen. Perhaps, this tour can become the catalyst to break the regulation logjam.