LAVELLE - Concern about the perceived environmental risk a fly ash project poses to an active aquifer spurred Butler Township supervisors to seek federal intervention for the testing of residential water wells.
Supervisors are awaiting a decision from the Environmental Protection Agency to its request to have background testing performed on residential wells in the Lavelle-Mowry area. They also ask for quarterly and annual analysis. The tests aren't required by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
"Without this data it will be impossible to establish background levels in groundwater and detect threats to the well users in our jurisdiction," Supervisor Chairman David Kessler writes in the letter.
A 6.2-acre pit at a Gilberton Coal mine site in Mount Carmel Township will be filled with about 400,000 tons of fly ash over the next 10 years. The site is near the border with Butler Township, Schuylkill County. It's a PPL Corp. project, and the fly ash will likely come from the company's Montour coal-fired power plant. The site is being prepared, but a company spokeswoman
says there is no start date for the fly ash to be hauled there. Fall had been the previous estimate.
DEP studies find that groundwater from the project site will flow north and away from the Butler Township villages. The studies cite gradient of the land, testing of a barrier pillar and studies of underground mine maps.
Robert Gadinski, a project opponent and a retired DEP hydrogeologist, believes otherwise. He says the groundwater could flow south down-gradient through mine tunnels and natural faults into the Lykens Valley No. 4 seam and seep into the water table. Dozens of wells are at risk, he says, including the well at his own Mowry home.
His concern is shared by Kessler.
"Since there is ample evidence of mining and geologic connections between the disposal area and the used aquifer in the Lavelle/Mowry area, we are requesting help from your agency to sample the down gradient wells in this area in order to protect our citizenry," Kessler writes in his letter.
But DEP says the fly ash will work like concrete, plugging the pit and preventing groundwater from seeping into the underground tunnels. There are two active monitoring wells in place in the Lavelle area that would detect contaminants if groundwater would flow south.
The scientific data supporting the determination that groundwater will flow north was backed by an environmental review board that tossed Gadinski's challenge to the project.