South Fayette board mulls mining request
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Coal may be a burning issue tonight in South Fayette.
Aloe Brothers LLC, owners of the site of the former Mayview State Hospital, have applied for a variance and special exception for “mineral removal.”
“It is an application for mining on the site,” said township Manager Ryan Eggleston.
South Fayette’s zoning hearing board will discuss those requests at a meeting at 7 p.m. in the municipal building.
There also will be a public hearing, which is expected to attract a crowd that, if large enough, will push proceedings to the larger senior center in another part of the building.
A number of South Fayette residents have expressed environmental and financial concerns and interests related to coal and Marcellus Shale drilling. Aloe Brothers’ application was discussed at the township commissioners meeting Feb. 20.
The company, based in the Mt. Washington section of Pittsburgh, purchased the Mayview property for $505,505 in May 2010. It plans to build a 160-acre business park spanning both sides of Mayview Road.
“It doesn’t have a name yet,” Dennis Regan, project manager for Aloe, said Tuesday. “We’re still in the general planning stages. We still have another year of demolition and asbestos abatement.”
When Mayview closed in late December 2008, at age 115, it was the only remaining state hospital in Allegheny County that served people with mental illness. The coal from a mine on the property, abandoned nearly 50 years ago, was once used to heat the buildings on the sprawling hospital campus.
Regan said the surface mining would be done in that location, on about 30 acres between Mayview Road and an active rail line. The coal is about 40 feet underground.
The primary reason for mining there, he said, is to solidify the earth for construction of the business park.
“You do asbestos work, then demolition, then earth-moving,” Regan said. “Part of moving the earth is removing the coal. You have to clean that up. That’s part of what we do. Then you compact the earth to have something solid to build on.”
He said Aloe’s plan for the business park includes having “everything open within five years.”
On the eve of the meeting, Regan tried to dissuade community concerns about the project.
“Our goal is to have a green development and make economic development here, where there are good-paying jobs.
“I envision a really nice, environmentally friendly business park near a walking trail and wetlands. It would be a nice campus-like setting for locating a business.”