Residents skeptical of cleanup plans for Muse site

Some 120 people filled a Cecil Township meeting on Thursday, many urging officials not to consummate plans for a pricey cleanup that would allow the township to take over an 87-acre former chemical-making and mining site in Muse and construct a new public works building there.
“My concern is we’re knowingly approaching and we signed something, which is blowing my mind, that has carcinogens listed on the actual legal consent,” said Krystle Burt, one of about 10 citizens who spoke during the more than three-hour meeting.
During some of her remarks, she pointed to a 2017 consent order among the township; ABB, a technology firm based in Switzerland that owns the property on Muse-Bishop Road; and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
“There are a lot of environmental concerns that I have … and that’s why it’s crucial that as a township we need those answers when carcinogens are listed on something we as taxpayers have relied on you to make an agreement on.”
Under the agreement, the township would become the owner of the site once the DEP granted the site clearance under Act 2, the state law that lays out a process for cleaning up remediated property and being released from environmental liability.
During the meeting, the public could ask questions of David Perry – the environmental consultant advising the township – about the proposed remediation.
Unlike the soil that was contaminated by chemical and manufacturing operations that went on at the site from 1953 until ’87, the groundwater was never part of remediation work. ABB got the land when it bought Combustion Engineering, the previous owner.
A coal mine was located there from 1923 to 1953. The gob pile that sits on about 35 acres of the property has never been capped off.
Perry, president of the firm American Geosciences, said one problem is the presence of an industrial chemical known as 1,4 dioxane. Environmental regulators consider the contaminant a likely carcinogen and hazard to aquatic life.
“Our gut feel is, looking at the concentrations, when we run a risk assessment, that the concentrations in that tributary are going to come out, and it’s going to be OK,” Perry said. But, he added: “Where the downside is, if I’m wrong, and the risk assessment and our sort of gut feel because we’ve looked at it are wrong, then that gets really, really expensive to have to treat that stream.”
Many speakers didn’t want the township to become involved with the site, whose property line is 2,500 feet from Muse Elementary Center.
“I don’t care if it’s a one in a million chance that there’s a kid in that school that gets sick from us doing anything at this property,” said Michelle Stonemark. “If there’s a one in a million chance, it’s not worth us doing anything up there – nothing.”
The sale agreement between the township and ABB names a sale price of just $10, but also contains terms requiring the township to spend $450,000 toward cleaning up the site, with ABB paying for the rest.
The sale is contingent on Act 2 clearance for the site, but it does allow the township to enter a “ground lease” to build a public works building before the sale closes.
ABB agreed to indemnify the township from any “other environmental liabilities” for 12 years after the clearance is granted.
Still, several supervisors say there are too many unknowns in the plan.
Supervisor Cindy Fisher said she’s concerned the township will spend “years and years,” plus millions of dollars, without ever receiving the Act 2 release.
“While I’m not at all opposed to cleaning up the property, I don’t think that it should sit on the shoulders of the taxpayers,” she said.
The township so far has spent almost $258,000 in total on the project since 2016. Of that amount, more than $66,000 consists of payments to the firm Tucker Arensberg, which was hired to advise officials. Per the agreement, those fees don’t count toward the township’s share of the project costs.
Another $30,000 went to Gateway Engineers, and $161,000 to Perry’s firm.
Among the points of contention supervisors argued about during the meeting was the question of who was responsible for dismissing the township’s attorneys from Tucker Arensberg, Brad Tupi and David Mongillo, who weren’t there.
Supervisor Tom Casciola accused his colleagues Fisher, Frank Egizio and Ron Fleeher of firing them during an executive session two days earlier.
Fisher said that isn’t true. Instead, she said a majority of the board asked him to look into the possibility of getting out of the contract.
“His exact words were that he would not do that, because as far as he was concerned, he negotiated a binding contract and he believed that we could not get out of it and we should seek a second opinion,” she said.
Casciola disagreed, saying Fisher had “kept talking and talking” and “interrupting (Tupi) all the time” before he told her to have another attorney look at the contract. His account was met with a murmur of disapproval from the audience.
Casciola, board Chairman Eric Sivavec and former supervisor Elizabeth Cowden voted in favor of the purchase. Fleeher, who unseated Cowden that year, and the two others say they oppose going through with it.
The township is also able to seek public money for cleanup work on the site that would be out of reach for ABB acting on its own.
The supervisors who oppose the project also accused the other faction of working behind their backs to move it forward, saying they had no idea about a discussion between Casciola and the Washington County Redevelopment Authority regarding the redevelopment authority’s help with possible future development there.
Another dispute among officials had to do with an application for $1.9 million mine-reclamation grant for the waste pile cleanup and other aspects of the project.
It’s unclear if the township will receive the money. Fleeher and Fisher said the application had been submitted last year without the consent of most of the board.
“And then it came up for a vote (in August) after the grant had been applied for,” Fisher said.