Source: http://lancasteronline.com, February 24, 2015
By: K. Scott Kreider
The site of a former manufactured gas plant in Mount Joy is slated for cleanup this spring, after soil and groundwater tests revealed residual coal tar and other materials left from the plant.
PPL Electric Utilities and UGI Utilities will partner to excavate and remove contaminated soils and remnants of the former facility, which will then be transported offsite to a licensed facility, PPL spokesman Bryan Hay said in an email.
A formal schedule for the cleanup is not yet in place, Hay said, but interim remedial action should occur within six to nine weeks.
The site at 225 W. Main St., which is currently owned by UGI Utilities, used to house an operation that heated coal and produced gas for public and industrial use. The plant operated from 1880 until 1951.
PPL Electric Utilities’ predecessor company, Pennsylvania Power & Light Co., owned the site from 1930 until 1949.
After a series of soil and water tests from 2012 to 2014 at the site and surrounding area, PPL and UGI identified structures from the former plant along with residual materials like coal tar in the soil and groundwater, Hay said.
Coal tar is a byproduct from the process of making gas with coal. It’s used in several industrial products and medicines, but according to a public health statement from the Center for Disease Control, exposure to coal tar may be harmful to human health and the environment.
“Although constituents from the former MGP operations have been found in the soil and groundwater,” Hay said, “human exposure to these constituents is very unlikely as there is no direct exposure pathway.”
The impacts to groundwater and what to do to address it are still being evaluated, Hay said, but municipal water is unaffected by the site.
Hay said that PPL and UGI maintain frequent communication with Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, and they would submit a comprehensive report of their findings to DEP once the groundwater investigation is complete.
In a phone interview, borough manager Scott Hershey said that currently there is no ordinance to restrict new wells or to require residents to connect to the municipal water system, and there have not yet been discussions to put such an ordinance in place.
According to the borough authority operations manager Joseph Ardini, there are five residential properties and four commercial properties in the borough that use wells for a water source.