Public meeting request denied
Possibly even more divisive than the Worstell water impoundment, which is operated by Range Resources on Swihart Road in Cecil Township, is the forum through which it will be discussed Friday. Cecil Township is scheduled to hold a private conference with the state Department of Environmental Protection to ask questions regarding the impoundment, but not everyone is pleased with the meeting’s exclusive nature.
Vice Chairman Andy Schrader, who adamantly demanded that the board’s upcoming meeting with the DEP be made public, made a motion at the board of supervisors meeting Monday to cancel the conference. In his motion, he said that if the DEP fails to hold a public meeting by the board’s next supervisor’s meeting on September 3, the board would be prepared to take further action, including the possibility of voting to shut down the Worstell impoundment.
Schrader distributed copies of the DEP dam permit and cited issues including potential groundwater contamination, a faulty leak detection system, the construction of the impoundment without a proper permit and Range Resource’s failure to discontinue the impoundment and restore the property in a timely manner.
“Cecil Township has become a dumping ground for hazardous waste all over the area, and we need to be able to ask the DEP why and have them answer us in public,” Schrader said.
Schrader’s motion was not seconded by another supervisor, so the conference will proceed as scheduled. Schrader did not indicate whether or not he would attend the conference at the DEP’s headquarters in Pittsburgh.
Township Chairman Thomas Casciola said that questions regarding the impoundment must be answered as soon as possible, even if that means doing so in a private forum.
“We tried to get the DEP to go along with us, and they rejected us,” Casciola said. “We can get some answers on Friday. If we push the issue, the DEP is going to put their back up against the wall and they’re not going to be available to answer anything.”
Cindy Fisher, a township resident and supervisor candidate, said that the tenuous nature of a private conference that is not recorded could result in a lawsuit.
Other residents expressed that the impoundment should not be a public issue and voiced their support of the supervisors representing them at the conference.