Nov 14, 2014 7 min read

A look at headlines gracing the pages of the Observer-Reporter and Waynesburg Republican this week in Greene County history:

DEP testing

for golden algae

CLARKSVILLE – Environmental agencies took water samples Wednesday from a dozen streams and the Monongahela River to test for the golden algae believed responsible for the fish kill two months ago in Dunkard Creek.

The state Department of Environmental Protection and federal Environmental Protection Agency conducted the sampling on the river and on streams in Greene and Fayette counties.

“We know that golden algae was a contributing factor in the fish kill and so we believe it’s important for us to establish how prevalent it is in the entire (Monongahela River) watershed,” DEP spokeswoman Helen Humphreys said.

Streams sampled Wednesday were chosen because of their higher-than-normal levels of total dissolved solids as measured by the waters’ conductivity.

TDS levels in the sampled streams are relatively high, Humphreys said, though not nearly as high as those found in Dunkard Creek during the fish kill. Except for Dunkard Creek, no fish kills have been reported in the sampled streams.

TDS, which includes chlorides, is known to create a “salty, brackish water” on which the golden algae thrives, Humphreys said. Sources of TDS are many and can include power plants, abandoned mine water discharges, active mine water discharges and wastewater from natural gas well drilling, she said.

Environmental officials said earlier that the golden algae found in Dunkard Creek is normally found in coastal waters with high levels of salt or minerals. The presence of algae in the creek was the first documented case of the organism in the mid-Atlantic states, EPA said.

DEP officials earlier expressed concern about the possibility of golden algae in Whiteley Creek. Humphreys said the agencies were only testing for the algae’s presence in the stream Wednesday, though Consol Energy reportedly has found the algae there.

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Waynesburg Plaza

Shop ‘n Save to close

WAYNESBURG – After a seven-year run, the Shop ‘n Save supermarket at Waynesburg Plaza will close its doors, a victim, the owner said, of competitive pressure created by the new Wal-Mart.

Liquidation sales have already begun; the store’s last day is Wednesday.

The store is operated by Jamieson Family Markets. Tom Jamieson, company owner, said Friday that he was “extremely disappointed” by having to close the store, which he opened in January 2003.

The company has about 25 stores, and this is only the second time it has had to close a store because of competition, Jamieson said.

Jamieson said he felt bad for the store’s employees.

“The Waynesburg staff has been one of the very best to work with,” he said. “I feel that I failed them.”

Prior to the opening of the new Wal-Mart in Franklin Township in March, the Waynesburg Shop ‘n Save employed about 80 people. Jamieson said the numbers gradually dwindled and about 50 employees now remain.

Most of the store’s management staff have taken jobs at other Jamieson stores; other employees also can apply for work at other company stores, he said. The closest are in Uniontown and Morgantown, W.Va.

Jamieson attributed the closing to a drop in sales of about 30 percent that followed the opening of the Wal-Mart. The Waynesburg market has only so many potential customers, and with the opening of the Walmart the pie was sliced ever thinner, he said.

The company was one of the first to move into Waynesburg Plaza after it was purchased by a new owner and partially rebuilt in 2002.

The plaza was constructed in 1972 by the Koratich family of Waynesburg and opened the following year with Fisher’s Big Wheel and a Shop ‘n Save, then operated by a different owner, as the main tenants.

County’s property

value up 35 percent

WAYNESBURG – A countywide reassessment completed by the Greene County Assessment Office during the last two years will result in a 35.65 percent increase in the county’s total property value.

The market value of all properties, real estate as well as minerals, will increase from $1.08 billion to $1.46 billion, according to assessment figures certified Thursday by Greene County commissioners.

The commissioners decided earlier to complete the reassessment in house, rather than hire a company for the project, as the county had done for the last reassessment in 1992.

“We were able to do the reassessment for significantly less than a company could come in here and do it for,” chief assessor John Frazier said.

The cost of a reassessment for a county the size of Greene would normally run about $2 million, he said. “We did it for less than half that, and I think we did a better job,” Frazier said.

The small number of appeals filed with the boards of assessment appeal by property owners displeased with the new values tend to affirm Frazier’s belief about the quality of the reassessment.

The temporary appeal boards heard about 2,400 appeals, which represents only 7 percent of the total number of properties, Frazier said.

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Vo-tech students getting

inside taste of Army

culinary dishes

WAYNESBURG – Students from Greene County Vocational-Technical School will get a chance Friday to taste the U.S. Army’s dining facility food – without ever attending basic training.

The students aren’t part of a taste-test panel, but hosts to the Army’s Total Army Involvement in Recruiting or TAIR program. This unique seminar brings active duty soldiers to high schools and colleges. Through demonstrations and classroom settings, soldiers explain their Army careers and lifestyle to interested students.

Army Sgt. Falehsa Brown and Spec. Adrian Grimes, food service specialists from Fort Campbell, Ky., were selected to prepare dishes for the vo-tech students and faculty.

Brown, a nine-year Army veteran, who usually supervises a shift of cooks at Fort Campbell, will transfer her culinary talents to the classroom while she promotes her military occupation as one of the 212 ways to be a soldier.

Brown, who said she usually cooks for about 200 people at a time, said she loves her job at Fort Campbell.

“I’m happy at my job, and it’s certainly interesting,” she added. “I learn a lot of different aspects about cooking on a day-to-day basis … especially during specialty meals like Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

Prison officials expect relief

from crowding at Waynesburg

WAYNESBURG – The capacity of the State Correctional Institution for Women at Waynesburg will be expanded as part of a program announced by Gov. Robert P., Casey to relieve the state’s prison overcrowding crisis.

The governor’s three-part program would add 4,000 new cells to the prison system over the next two years at a cost of about $225 million.

One aspect of the plan is to add 1,440 cells within six months through the purchase of 12 new steel and concrete modular units at a cost of about $1.75 million each.

Three of the 120-bed units would be located at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill to replace beds in modular units that were destroyed in riots. The other nine units would be placed in six other institutions – Cresson, Mercer, Frackville, Muncy, Smithfield and Waynesburg.

$100,000 hospital

drive under way

A campaign to raise funds needed for capital improvements and equipment replacement programs at Greene County Memorial Hospital has been launched.

The hospital board of trustees, in initiating the annual campaign, said that the initial goal will be $100,000.

“A recent extensive study by a paid professional hospital consultant corporation indicates the current long-range needs of your hospital to be in the range of $3,400,000,” board President Frank Morton said.