Pregled posta

Marketing

By Mary Ann Thomas
FOR THE VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Monday, January 5, 2009



After hearing all of the bangs, clangs, screeching and voices in the middle of the night, there is finally peace in Pool 4 for the residents of River Forest.

The commercial dredging operations have ceased in the Allegheny River near the backyards of the River Forest community, one of the few residential waterfront developments in the region.

Hanson Aggregates PMA of New Kensington has moved its dredging operation upstream from Pool 4 to Pool 5, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Calls to Hanson for comment were not returned.

Recently, Hanson and two other commercial dredgers dropped an appeal with the state Environmental Hearing Board on new dredging regulations near the River Forest community.

Residents have long been disturbed by the noise of the operations. They were irked by the industry's freedom to set up a barge and a large powered clamshell bucket to mine the river bed into the night and on weekends within sight and ear shot of a residential neighborhood.

Some of the residents said they felt that the fresh water mussels were afforded more protection from the dredgers than they were.

So they rallied and complained about the noise, hired an attorney, hired an acoustics engineer, filed appeals, worked with local and state lawmakers to restrict try to force the dredge away from River Forest.

State Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, persuaded Kathleen McGinty, the former DEP secretary, to visit with River Forest residents in March, after which the residents scored a victory.

DEP added conditions to the dredging permit requiring Hanson to make less noise and limit its hours of operations in the River Forest area.

Residents continued to work with Ferlo, who vows to draft legislation limiting the work of an industry that has, for about 150 years, dredged the sand and gravel lining the beds of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers.

Decades ago, the industry was barely perceptible to the average person because the river was not the pleasure palace that it is today.

But as communities like River Forest as well as remodeled camps, trails, marinas and kayak tours now dot the waterfront, more people are noticing the river-dredging operations.

"We have gone through a fundamental shift along the three rivers, and it has changed what people want to live next to," Ferlo said.

"In Allegheny Township, they put blood, sweat and tears into those beautiful homes only to wake up to an industrial factory next to them, which just happens to be the river."

But river dredging isn't really a high profile operation because only four dredges operate in a 100-mile swath of water from the Allegheny River's Pool 9 just north of Rimer in Armstrong County to the Ohio River at the Ohio/West Virginia border, said Dan Giovannitti, spokesman for the dredging industry.

"Very few people have even seen a dredge," he said. "The amount of river bottom that is touched by a dredging operation in any given year is probably 4 to 5 acres."

Good gravel

The dredgers often find themselves under attack by environmental and other interests that question the existence of the industry and its impact on the river.

In fact, the only three companies that dredge the river -- Hanson, Glacial Sand and Gravel of Kittanning and Tri-State River Products of Beaver -- often unite to conduct environmental studies and appeal new restrictions and other legalities that could limit the scope of their work.

The industry employs about 250 workers in the region and mines about 3.5 million tons of sand and gravel from the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, Giovannitti said.

One of the advantages of river dredging, he said, is that an enormous amount of material is moved via barges directly to terminals and processing plants instead of dump trucks, which would require about 160,000 trips on land to move the same sand and gravel.

"It's a very efficient and sound way of capturing material," said Giovannitti.

Additionally, the river sand and gravel is a high grade employed for anti-skid material and asphalt for PennDOT, the major user of river aggregate.

Giovannitti stresses that a series of intense studies conducted by the industry -- with protocols approved by several environmental agencies -- demonstrated that there are no significant impacts on aquatic life posed by dredging.

"The river bottom has changed, certainly," he said. "But as a result of our studies, there was very little change about how dredging was conducted."

Permit conditions for dredging continue to evolve.

For example, dredging companies have been conducting mussel surveys for about 35 years.

"What's changed is the protocol -- how long a diver should be there and to study every one-tenth of a mile," Giovannitti said.

But the industry continues to be challenged because interest in the river continues to grow.

Have I ever discussed BK's tongue with you, flickr? No? It's not a normal tongue -- it looks like chopped meat. I'm sure there's a medical term for it, maybe even in Latin, but I don't know what it is. Anyhow, not only is BK's tongue weird looking, it's also apparently overly large and is the culprit behind his snoring, which has gotten bad enough that he had a sleep study done (no sleep apnea) and tried the pillar implants procedure.

Sadly, it didn't have much effect at all, so poor BK and his overly large chopped meat tongue usually sleep in the guest bedroom.

(more chopped meat in the comments)