Looking back at Greene County history
A look at some of the headlines gracing the pages of the Observer-Reporter and Waynesburg Republican this week in Greene County history:
W. Greene hires architect firm to look into improving school
NEW FREEPORT – West Greene School Board will hire an architectural firm to look into possible improvements at Graysville Elementary School.
The school board voted at its meeting Thursday to advertise for an architect.
The building needs a new roof, and, depending on the cost for that improvement, the district may look into other projects at the school, said Superintendent Thelma Szarell.
“The building is about 30 years old, and really nothing has been done to the building in that time,” she said.
The district’s last major capital improvements occurred in 2003, when a new air-conditioning system was installed in part of the high school building and the electrical system at Graysville was upgraded.
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Large drilling equipment
big headache
WAYNESBURG – With Greene and Washington counties sitting in the heart of the Marcellus Shale, a massive reserve of natural gas in the Appalachian region, drilling companies practically are salivating to extract the gas from the earth.
And the wealth of that natural gas could lead to an economic boon.
But there might be a downside, and that was addressed Friday during a hearing before the state House Transportation Committee at the Greene County Fairgrounds.
While the prospect of large drilling equipment traveling over municipal roads may not have been the primary factor behind a House bill that would update regulation of road bonds for overweight vehicles and increase the bond amounts, it nonetheless would impact a serious problem local governments already are facing.
State Rep. Mark Longietti, a Democrat from Mercer County, the bill’s author, told committee members and its chairman, Rep. Joseph Markosek, Allegheny-Westmoreland, that, “Just as our state government faces a challenge concerning our state-maintained roadways, our local governments face the same challenge concerning local roadways for which they bear the burden to maintain.”
Mining’s big picture
WAYNESBURG – Until every nugget of coal is extracted from the ground in Washington and Greene counties, environmentalists and advocates for homeowners’ rights will continue to passionately speak out about the longwall mining method that Mark Hersh of the Raymond Proffitt Foundation said, “destroys natural resources, homes, communities and people’s lives.”
On the other side, miners and coal company officials will argue just as passionately that by stopping longwall mining, a method used for the last 30 years, Southwestern Pennsylvania will be deprived of a viable industry and its citizens will be deprived of electricity.
And it was no coincidence that these two groups – about 75 miners and family members wearing T-shirts reading, “Coal: America’s Energy Source,” and those advocating stronger laws to protect their homes and water – filled Waynesburg Theatre Tuesday to watch a 15-minute documentary by Terri Taylor on longwall mining.
Taylor, an Emmy-winning filmmaker, began making “Subsided Ground … Fallen Futures” several years ago. Taylor won an Emmy in 1992 for her documentary on the Iran-Contra scandal. She currently works for the Pittsburgh public television station WQED and has previously reported for ABC, the Associated Press and KDKA-TV.
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Rendell touts merits
of mine project
BOBTOWN – Gov. Ed Rendell came to Greene County Thursday to make the formal announcement of a project that, he said, could eventually transform the polluted waters of an underground mine pool from an environmental liability to a potential economic resource.
Speaking before a small crowd in the parking lot at the former Shannopin Mine office near Bobtown, Rendell announced $7.1 million in grants and loans for construction of a plant to treat polluted mine water in the abandoned Shannopin Mine.
“This is an historic day for Pennsylvania because this agreement is the first of its kind involving the productive reuse of an abandoned mine pool,” Rendell said. “This project will protect Pennsylvania waterways, save taxpayer money and stimulate growth by promoting industrial uses for abandoned mine water.”
Treating the underground mine pool will prevent an uncontrolled breakout of polluted water into Dunkard Creek and the Monongahela River. It also will allow Dana Mining Co. to reopen its Dooley Mine, closed earlier because of flooding in Shannopin, and to expand its other mining operations in the county.
In addition, treated water from Shannopin could eventually be used to operate a proposed power plant in Monongalia County, W.Va.
25 years ago:
Sept. 22-28, 1988
Audit report blasts county bookkeeping
WAYNESBURG – A county audit report for 1987 that spells out fiscal shortcomings and accounting deficiencies of the previous county administration was released Sept. 14 by Greene County Controller John Stets.
In lengthy comments accompanying the report, Stets says the county commissioners who left office in January may have been subject to surcharges of $147,986 in penalties and interest paid to the Internal Revenue Service during 1987, but that it is beyond his jurisdiction to initiate a surcharge because the obligations were incurred in prior years.
He also says the existence of a non-contributory pension plan is the “most primary and fundamental a problem” facing the county because it has been unfunded since 1981 and would require approximately $1.6 million to fund through Jan, 1, 1988.
Honest thief admits theft
“At one time in my life I stole a water pail and a curry comb from the Waynesburg Fairgrounds,: a letter to the Greene County commissioners began.
“I cannot give a sane explanation of why I committed the act. Be so kind to accept the enclosed $5 to defray the cost of the missing items.”
Accompanying the signed letter, which was mailed from Philadelphia, was a postal money order for $5. The commissioners put the money into the general fund and instructed the chief clerk to write the man acknowledging receipt of the money.