May 18, 2019 3 min read

A Cecil supervisor spent more than an hour on Thursday leading an informal meeting in Muse, outlining plans he supports for the township to take over a nearby gob pile and former chemical plant site.

Supervisor Tom Casciola did so amid an ongoing dispute among supervisors over the purchase of an 87-acre property on Muse-Bishop Road that was home to a coal mine and, later, various chemical recovery and production operations.

The township entered a purchase agreement with current owner ABB in late 2017 to buy the land for a nominal $10. Under the agreement and a related one among township officials, the Swiss multinational and the state Department of Environmental Protection, the sale will become final only if the state agency finds that the property has met standards for remediation outlined under Act 2, which allows the owners of contaminated property to obtain relief from environmental liability.

Soil from the site of the former chemical operations was remediated in the 1990s and finally given Act 2 clearance in 2007. The gob pile and the groundwater at the site weren’t part of that work.

Casciola spent much of this week’s meeting rehashing details about why he supports pursuing the plans, saying experts the township consulted had given the opinion that Act 2 clearance would be possible for the site. For example, he repeated township environmental consultant David Perry’s opinion that the groundwater could be successfully remediated.

“Based on his experience and the low concentrations (of contaminants) that are showing up in all the (water) samples, it’s not going to be a problem at all,” Casciola said.

Resident Darlene Barni organized the meeting, which was held in a fire department social hall, following a May 6 vote by a majority of the supervisors – Ron Fleeher, Cindy Fisher and Frank Egizio – to fire attorneys from the firm Tucker Arensberg who’d been hired to advise officials on the sale.

At that meeting, the three also voted to authorize township solicitor Gretchen Moore to review the agreements with ABB and the DEP.

“At this point, before we even decide which direction we’re going, we need to have some contract questions answered,” Fisher said on Friday.

Fisher – who said she and others on the board weren’t invited – and Fleeher didn’t attend. Egizio joined the audience briefly near the end of the meeting before standing up, accusing Casciola of trying to persuade people to support his plans and storming out.

“There was no need for this rushed meeting,” Fisher said. “We need to take our time and make the right decision and get all of the answers and make a decision and move forward.”

Barni, a candidate for township supervisor whose name will appear on the GOP ballot in Tuesday’s primary, said she didn’t organize the event as part of her campaign.

“It’s absolutely informational,” Barni said. “No political agenda, at all.”

Still, the disagreement over the plans among township officials and residents is coming to a head amid an election cycle – in which Fisher, a Democrat, is seeking a new term – that could shift the makeup of the board in favor of moving forward with capping the gob pile at the site and other aspects of the existing plans.

“Who wouldn’t want it cleaned up?” Barni said.

Kevin Camerson, another Democrat who’s also running for supervisor, agreed.

“At a minimum, cap the gob pile to eliminate further arsenic contamination, acid drainage and mitigate unsafe steep slopes,” he said.