Top 10 stories in Greene County in 2014
Flames erupt from Chevron Appalachia’s Lanco well pad in Dunkard Township. Two wells on the pad caught fire Feb. 11. One worker was killed and another was injured.
Chris Abruzzo, then secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, talks to a reporter about efforts to extinguish the fire at Chevron Appalachia’s Lanco well pad in Dunkard Township.
Natasha Burns
Randy Anderson
Raphael Spearman
Work to demolish the six-story former People’s National Bank building on High Street began June 23.
The demolition of the former People’s National Bank building on High Street was begun the night of June 23 and drew a crowd to the courthouse wall.
Waynesburg University, which purchased the former People’s National Bank Building, hired a demolition company to tear down the historic structure. The university hasn’t said what use it will make of the property.
Part of the development at the Greene County Airport involved the construction of a 20,280-square-foot T-hangar east of the administration building.
Four old airplane hangars at Greene County Airport were demolished to clear an area fronting Route 21 for commercial development.
The removal of an overweight truck from the historic Pollocks Mill Bridge took two days and resulted in thousands of dollars in damages in October.
Plans were announced in August to use sediment from the now-dry Duke Lake to reclaim the Mather coal refuse dump. Sediment has to be removed from the lake bed before the lake can be restored. The lake has been dry since 2005.
John Stefanko, a state Department of Environmental Protection deputy secretary, speaks in August at a ceremony at the Mather coal refuse dump on plans to reclaim the site using sediment from the now-dry Duke Lake.
Linda Chambers
William Nalitz
A fireman watches as the remains of the Ice Plant restaurant in Glassworks are torn down following a structure fire on Jan. 5.
A structure fire in Center Township claimed the life of Ruth E. Larimer, 83, in January.
Fire shot through the roof of the Muhly’s Little Restaurant in Clarksville in August.
Alpha Natural Resources announced in August it will close its Emerald Mine by the end of 2015 because of weak market conditions and the mine’s uncertain geological conditions.
State Trooper Bart Lemansky addresses parents in attendance at a Jefferson-Morgan building and grounds committee meeting regarding bomb threats in the district.
Samuel Spencer
An explosion and fire at Chevron Appalachia’s Lanco well pad in Dunkard Township on the morning of Feb. 11 that left one worker dead and another injured was voted the top story of 2014 by the staff of the Observer-Reporter’s Greene County office.
Also receiving votes were three homicides, including one at the State Correctional Institution-Greene, the demolition of the six-story former People’s National Bank building on High Street, and the beginning of a major multimillion dollar project at the Greene County Airport intended to open up property for commercial development along Route 21.
Here is this year’s complete list:
1. An explosion and fire at Chevron Appalachia’s Lanco well pad in Dunkard Township on the morning of Feb. 11 killed one worker and injured another.
The fire at two of the three wells on the pad burned for four days before extinguishing themselves but continued to emit natural gas until capped the last week in February.
The worker who died was identified as Ian McKee, 27, who was employed by Cameron International, a Chevron contractor. McKee was listed as unaccounted for until Feb. 27, when his remains were found at the site.
The well was in a remote area and no residents were evacuated. Air samples taken by the state Department of Environmental Protection following the explosion indicated no pollutants at levels harmful to local residents or emergency responders.
In a report issued in August, DEP said the explosion may have resulted from human error by a contract worker on the site with little oilfield experience.
The fire ignited about 6:45 a.m., the report said, when employees for Cameron were preparing for a safety briefing and McKee and another worker walked toward one of the well heads, which was covered by a tarp, to investigate a hissing sound.
The cause of the ignition was unknown though the report said several ignition sources were nearby, including a truck with equipment to heat brine and heated air blowers.
The report criticized Chevron for its lack of oversight of contractors at the well pad that, among other things, allowed an inexperienced employee of Cameron to do work for which he was neither trained nor properly supervised.
The well site manager had “virtually no background” in the industry and because of other duties had no time to supervise contractors, the report said.
DEP also criticized, and cited, Chevron for initially barring DEP personnel from the site. The company also failed to provide DEP with “meaningful” updates during regularly scheduled briefings and excluded DEP from discussions between Chevron and Wild Well Control, the company brought in by Chevron to control the fire, the report said.
2. In June, an Aleppo Township man was charged with homicide in the June 26 shooting death of Terry S. Weyrick, 42, of Cameron, W.Va., in Springhill Township.
Randy Flynn Anderson, 52, of 472 Morford Road, had been sitting at his kitchen table with Weyrick and a friend, Herbert David Long, drinking and talking prior to the shooting. Long told police Anderson was intoxicated when he retrieved a rifle from his bedroom and shot Weyrick in the face. He said earlier in the evening Anderson was angry over Weyrick allegedly pulling on his beard and a scuffle ensued. A jury trial has yet to be scheduled.
On July 21, a Wind Ridge couple was taken into custody for extradition to West Virginia related to a triple homicide in Littleton, W.Va., on Jan. 13. Samuel Lee Spencer, 25, and Natasha Lynn Burns, 26, of 420 W. Roy Furman Highway, are charged in the stabbing deaths of husband and wife, Michael, 63, and Carmen McDougal, 55, along with the McDougal’s friend, Jimmy Kisner, 48, of Aleppo. The McDougals were found inside the charred remains of their mobile home. Police allege the fire was set by Spencer to cover up the murders. Kisner’s body was found outside the trailer. Burns and Spencer face first-degree murder charges.
In November, an SCI-Greene inmate pleaded guilty to a charge of voluntary manslaughter for killing his cellmate on Jan. 10. Inmate Raphael Moses Spearman, Jr., 24, of Philadelphia accepted the commonwealth’s offer of 6 to 20 years, to be served consecutively to his current sentence for killing Ronald Yarbough, 22, of Cresson. They had been cellmates for one day when correction’s officers found Yarbough unresponsive in the cell.
3. A landmark in downtown Waynesburg, the six-story former People’s National Bank building, was demolished in June, leaving, depending on one’s point of view, another vacant lot on Main Street or a potential site for new development.
The demolition was announced following an effort by the former owner to rehabilitate the structure, which had been vacant for more than 20 years. The building was constructed by the People’s National Bank and was opened in August 1907. After the bank closed, the building was sold to the county, which used it as an office building from 1952 to 1989.
The building was sold to John McNay in 1994. In late 2013, McNay and a contractor announced plans to rehabilitate the building and convert it to 28 apartments. The plan required the approval of the Waynesburg Zoning Hearing Board.
The plan eventually received board approval, though during the zoning hearings, Waynesburg University strongly opposed it.
The project appeared to be moving forward when in March, the university purchased the property from McNay for $410,000,
Three months later, the university announced the building would be demolished, citing its numerous deficiencies and “severely rundown” condition. The new use of the property, the university said, would be decided during the process that was being begun to revise the borough’s comprehensive plan. The demolition work started the night of June 23 and drew a crowd of onlookers.
At Waynesburg Borough Council’s next meeting, however, a small group of downtown property owners and businesses criticized the borough for letting the university demolish the building.
4. Several years ago, it was thought the cornerstone of retail development in Greene County would take place in the Waynesburg Crossing development in Franklin Township, the site of the Walmart complex.
But Walmart, which opened a store there in March 2009, has remained the development’s only tenant.
While that project continued to remain static this year, another retail development site is beginning to take shape. Plans have begun to design a new access road at the county airport as part of a plan to prepare properties fronting Route 21 for commercial development. This is a project that was discussed for years, always with a caveat that this phase could not begin until that phase was completed.
Old hangars were demolished during 2014 and a new T-hangar constructed. This paves the way for a major part of the project – constructing a road into the airport property that will be realigned with Murtha Drive to make a new four-way intersection at Murtha Drive and Route 21.
Other positive economic news was the news the former Kyowa America Corp. building on Route 21 in Franklin Township, vacant for the last two years, was sold to a commercial real estate investment and development company.
Kyowa, which closed its plant there in July 2012, sold the building to SunCap Waynesburg LLC for $4.5 million. The property covers 13.3686 acres.
Also this year, Southwest Regional Medical Center’s former InstaCare Urgent Care was purchased by MedExpress, and the revamped facility reopened Nov. 12 at the same location in Green Plaza, and Peebles, a department store in existence since 1891, opened at the Widewaters Commons shopping complex outside Waynesburg.
5. An overweight tanker truck carrying water to a natural gas drilling site collapsed a portion of the four-ton, weight-restricted Pollocks Mill Bridge on Sept. 28.
The driver of the truck, Jason W. Strawderman, 38, of Beverly, W.Va., pleaded guilty Oct. 9 to disobeying a traffic control device and operating a vehicle that exceeded the weight restriction. He was fined $10,297.
Strawderman was hauling water from the Monongahela River to an EQT well site on Pollocks Mill Road when he attempted to cross the bridge. Strawderman told police his global positioning system led him to the bridge and he did not see the weight restriction signs.
It took two days to remove the truck from the bridge and required the use of two heavy-duty tow trucks operating in tandem. The process also required a temporary gas shut-off to about 4,500 customers of the People’s Natural Gas Co., whose gas line crossed the bridge.
6. A project to complete the reclamation of the 70-acre Mather coal refuse pile and assist in the restoration of the long-dry Duke Lake at Ryerson Station State Park was announced by state officials in August.
The plan calls for using the sediment that must be removed from the lake bed before a new dam is constructed to reclaim the gray slate surface of the refuse dump at Mather.
The Mather slate dump has been in existence for more than 95 years. Part of the site was reclaimed by the Greene County Industrial Development Authority in 2001, though the project was halted several years later for lack of funding.
The site will be graded, compacted and covered with two feet of sediment excavated from Duke Lake. The sediment, which meets all state standards for clean fill, should make an excellent ground cover, the state Department of Environmental Protection said.
The project also will assist with the restoration of Duke Lake, which has been dry since 2005. A settlement announced in 2013 to end litigation between DEP and Consol Energy, whose mining operations allegedly resulted in the previous dams’ failure, ensures construction of the new dam
7. Linda Chambers, first assistant district attorney for Greene County, retired Dec. 12. Chambers worked for law firms in Washington and Allegheny counties before going into private practice in Greene County over 20 years ago. She joined the DA’s office in 2001 and became first assistant in 2002.
President Judge William Nalitz is required to retire at the end of December, having reached the mandatory retirement age for judges of 70.
Nalitz was elected by the voters in 1997 to compose the county’s first two-judge court in its history. He won retention for another 10-year term in 2007 and became president judge following the retirement of President Judge H. Terry Grimes in January 2009. Then-Gov. Ed Rendell appointed Farley Toothman to the seat left vacant by Nalitz’ moving up. Toothman was elected to a full 10-year term in 2011. He will become president judge following Nalitz retirement, leaving his current seat vacant until a newly elected judge can be sworn into office on Jan. 4, 2016.
8. A structure fire in the early morning hours of Jan. 14 claimed the life of a Center Township woman. Ruth E. Larimer, 83, was found dead on the back porch of her trailer at 109 Cole Hollow Road. Her daughter, Susan Larimer, 58, escaped uninjured. She told investigators she heard a crackling sound and got up to see smoke filling the trailer. She said she began yelling and looking for her mother but could not find her.
The historic Ice Plant restaurant in Glassworks was a total loss following a fire on Jan. 5. Firefighters from 11 companies across Greene and Fayette counties responded to the blaze. Freezing temperatures hindered their efforts when hydrants froze, resulting in a loss of water pressure. Tanker trucks of water were brought in to assist but fire had gathered between layers of ceilings built on top of each other through the years when remodeling took place.
Fire swept the brick and block building that housed the Muhly’s Little Restaurant at 137 Center Street in Clarksville in August resulting in a total loss. The restaurant’s owner, Eileen Muhly, was next door at her convenience store when a customer alerted her flames were coming from the roof of the restaurant.
9. Alpha Natural Resources announced in August it will close its Emerald Mine in Waynesburg by the end of 2015 because of weak market conditions and the mine’s uncertain geological conditions.
The mine, which has been in operation for 37 years, employed about 500 workers. Employees were aware of the closing as the mine progressed in mining what was left of its mineable reserves, a spokesman said.
The company said some of the workers will probably retire while others will transfer to the company’s Cumberland Mine. In its earnings report, the company said it plans to increase production at Cumberland, which should make up some of the production loss resulting from the closing of Emerald. The United Mine Workers, which represents both mines, said it didn’t expect any layoffs as a result of the closing.
10. A bomb threat at a school is not too unusual but when a school district receives six in a five-week period that is another matter.
Jefferson-Morgan School District had that problem when between Dec. 15 and Nov. 19 it received six bomb threats, all in the form of written notes found in the schools or messages written on restroom walls. A seventh threat also was reported during that same time, but it was discovered after school already had let out for the day.
A student was arrested by state police in October in one of the three threats the district had received up to that date.
The district implemented steps to attempt to halt the threats, including checking the restrooms before and after students used them. It also provided counseling, particularly to younger students to help them deal with the threats and school evacuations.