Pocono News Section

I-Team: Pineknotter Park Investigation

I-Team: Pineknotter Park Investigation - Wednesday, February 6, 2008 at 5:45PM EST

Reported by: Mike Trim
Wednesday, Feb 6, 2008 @05:45pm EST
A group of people want new testing must be done at an old landfill, in Northumberland County. The I-Team investigated what lies beneath Pineknotter Park in Northumberland Borough.

The old Northumberland borough landfill has had its share of problems after it closed up, and the borough built Pineknotter Park on top of it. While the state says it's done everything to ensure the park is safe. One group of people says it wasn't enough.

Pineknotter Park is home to a baseball field, and a playground. But some feel it's also home for a toxic mess. Mike Reedy of Point Township says, "I don't think it's something we should be using to trade off our children's future and our grandchildren's future for playing down here in this facility."

The park is built on top of the old Northumberland landfill. Closed and capped in 1983, it holds decades of nasty municipal waste in it's soil. Reedy says, "We just didn't feel it was a proper place to put a park at"

Nasty enough that some of it's contents, or leachate, leaked out in 1998. The park closed, and the borough took soil and water samples. High levels of chemicals like arsenic, mercury, lead, and vinyl chloride were found. The borough spent nearly 100 thousand dollars in 2001 to contain the leak. Department of environmental protection records show new topsoil was brought in, a trench was dug to detour the leachate, and all pipes around the old landfill were lined to stop possible infiltration.The DEP gave the borough a green light to re-open the park. DEP spokesman Dan Spadoni says, "We're satisfied that the borough did perform what their responsibility was to do. We have not had any complaints."

But Reedy and Heintzelman say it wasn't enough. They believe the waste causing high chemical readings is still there, beneath the ballpark and playground. They say despite the borough and DEP’s efforts, more needs to be done. Jim Steigerwalt of Point Township is an experienced soil and water tester. He talked about the 98’ results, saying "This is a real potential hazard in my opinion." He says the waste causing high chemical readings in 98' hasn't been moved, and could still pose problems if the DEP’s containment fails. He says some chemicals like vinyl chloride could stay in water for months, even years. But the DEP says all chemicals are contained properly within the soil.

The current borough council president Bryan Wolfe agrees, saying "It's just the way it is. I mean, you can protect the public according to the specifications and that's what we did."

Wolfe says there's not much more that can be done. "At some point a dump closes and you can't just move every content of the dump."

But Heintzelman and Reedy think the DEP's remediation work was only a band aid on the problem. They think the EPA should have been called in. Heintzelman says, "It's hard to say exactly what direction this is going to lead. However it appears that the borough was concerned with being bankrupt."

Wolfe says the borough isn't bankrupt, but is still paying the bill for the 2001 remediation work. He trusts the DEP containment will last. Wolfe says, "Ultimately the contents are still there and depending on how long it takes stuff to degrade they're still there and some cases there for thousands of years."

Now Heintzelman and Reedy say they'll lead a push to bring in the EPA to take new soil and water tests at the landfill.

All the work done on the Northumberland landfill is public information. You can look at borough council minutes online, and access public records at the DEP office in Williamsport.