Below is an article for another trial which Penndot recommended that Bauxsol be used. I can only conclude that the current trial progress at Skytop must be impressive for them to already recommend Bauxsol for use in this university trial.
BOGGS TOWNSHIP -- The state has given the University of Pittsburgh a $300,000 contract to clean up acidic discharge that has polluted Jonathan Run since Interstate 80 was built 40 years ago.
The Jonathan Run problems are very similar to the current acid-rock problem plaguing the Interstate 99 construction site at Skytop.
The head of the Beech Creek Watershed Association, which is a panel member in the new undertaking, said the Jonathan Run work could help the state decide on a permanent fix for the acid-rock drainage problem that threatens Buffalo Run at Skytop.
"My understanding is that they're going to give them some answers that maybe will help them with the I-99 project," said Mary Vuccola, president of the Beech Creek Watershed Association.
The association began advocating for a Jonathan Run cleanup long before PennDOT recognized the Skytop problem two years ago, but the Skytop work five miles west of State College took attention away from the much older problem 30 miles to the north.
"We were kind of put on the side burner for a while," Vuccola said. "This was something that really was supposed to have been addressed long ago."
The acidity of Jonathan Run water runs between a pH of 3 and 4, against a normal pH of 7. The runoff leaching from the Skytop fill areas and spoil piles has had a pH of less than 3.
Marla Fannin, state Department of Transportation spokeswoman, discounted the correlation between solutions for the two environmental hazards.
"I think that there's potential to learn from one situation as it applies to any number of situations," she said. "If we learn something, that would be terrific, but that was not a factor in the decision to try and go ahead with this."
The contract was awarded after PennDOT issued a request for proposals. Fannin said PennDOT has directed the University of Pittsburgh's Jonathan Run team to consider the use of the Australian cleanup product Bauxsol, 300 tons of which has been applied so far in a pilot test at an I-99 fill area at Skytop.
"It's just logical to try it," Fannin said.
Ronald Neufeld, the University of Pittsburgh engineering professor heading the Jonathan Run work, did not return repeated messages from the CDT seeking comment, but forwarded those requests to PennDOT.
PennDOT gave the Neufeld team a March 7, 2007, deadline to identify pollution sources, find the best way to stop the pollution and develop a cleanup construction plan, among other things.
"It is an ambitious 18-month contract," PennDOT engineer Dennis Neff said. "Since the evaluation of the chosen mitigation will not be completed until 2007, this project will probably not influence what is done at Skytop."
PennDOT says it hopes to formulate a permanent cleanup plan this fall, start working on it in earnest after winter and by the end of 2007 complete construction of I-99 between the Blair County village of Bald Eagle and the Grays Woods interchange in Patton Township.
The acidic drainage running into Jonathan Run comes from a massive fill area under I-80 near Devil's Elbow Road. A cleanup system that channels some water through a limestone neutralization system has been installed, but the system is too small to handle all the runoff from the million-cubic-yard fill area.
"The water that flows under the interstate is devastated by discharges from the embankment itself," Vuccola said.
Jonathan Run flows south to north to the south fork of long-dead Beech Creek, which defines Centre County's northern boundary before flowing into Bald Eagle Creek at the Clinton County line.
"Jonathan Run was a pristine trout stream," Vuccola said. "Prior to I-80 it was just a beautiful trout stream. That's what's so sad about the whole thing."
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