aim, page-16

re: aim/artical pk, the following article sure don't spell good news for VTI. In fact, if handled improperly, the reputation of Bauxsol can go down the drain for good. Hopefully, someone from VTI would correct that article and make sure they clarify that it is the delivery method that was being trialled, and not the Bauxsol technology.

Cheers.

Posted on Sun, Dec. 11, 2005

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/special_packages/i99/13374947.htm

Our View

A disgraceful anniversary

In March, two years will have passed since the roar of earth movers on Skytop Mountain fell silent -- two years since Bud Shuster's transportation dream, the highway that was to change life as we know it in Happy Valley, became a potential environmental nightmare.

We are rapidly approaching the second anniversary of when, to avoid further contamination of nearby wells and streams by acid runoff from massive spoil piles of rock, construction of Interstate 99 ground to a halt.

In those two years, we have learned:

u That highway and environmental officials were taken by complete surprise when the problem -- iron sulfide that, when exposed to air and water, can devastate water supplies -- was discovered.

u That Bauxsol is not, as had been advertised, the answer to neutralizing the acid -- after a million-dollar test was completed, a state Department of Transportation official admitted he and his colleagues are "not fully confident" in the chemical's effectiveness.

u That legislative hearings have been less effective than Bauxsol in actually doing anything to end the stalemate between engineers and nature at Skytop.

But that is what appears to be on the horizon -- more meetings, more hearings -- mainly because that seems to be all anyone in a position of authority can think of to do.

And now it will be another two years, at least, before I-99 is open to the motoring public -- if anyone can figure out just how to proceed with the cleanup process.

Meanwhile, unsafe conditions persist on local highways forced to handle I-99's traffic runoff; tests suggest the contamination, far from being under control, is spreading; and the House Transportation Committee, as announced by state Rep. Lynn Herman, R-Philipsburg, will meet Wednesday to hear a status report on the efforts to find a permanent solution to the acid rock on Skytop.

Committee members could save themselves the time. The status: Two years, nothing accomplished.

How much longer will it be until someone with the authority, the clout and the political will to get something done steps up -- not to the microphone in the committee room, but to the plate -- and does something?