Since March 17, on each day when it hasn't rained hard, workers have dug enormous amounts of trash-laden dirt from an abandoned municipal dump behind the U.S. Post Office off the Harrisburg Pike in Manheim Township.

They pack more than 1,000 tons of trash a day into 50 to 60 trucks that cart it to the Lancaster Area Solid Waste Management Authority's Frey Farm Landfill along the Susquehanna River.

The trucks return with clean dirt and backfill the dump. That dirt is leveled and compacted.

This process will continue until the entire dump has been excavated, refilled and raised as much as 10 feet to the level of the adjacent Norfolk Southern freight line.

Then Norfolk Southern will build a new yard, with 12 sets of yard tracks,  to hold an increased number of freight cars.

The dump-cleaning process is crucial to the Northwest Gateway Project.

With the new yard in place, Norfolk Southern can abandon its old yard in northwest Lancaster City. Then project sponsors Franklin & Marshall College and Lancaster General will replace it with new construction.

To some residents of the School Lane Hills and Barrcrest developments in Manheim Township, the dump cleaning is not so controversial. Some neighbors are pleased to see a dump removed from their neighborhood. Others are indifferent.

But other neighbors, especially those with homes closest to the dump, are disturbed that potentially dangerous materials, especially asbestos, are being disrupted in the process.

These neighbors didn't want the railroad to move its yard to this place. They're not looking forward to the noise and diesel emissions. They're afraid their property values will suffer.

They prefer other sites, within the city, but they say project sponsors won't consider those alternatives.

These neighbors, organized as The Rail Road Action and Advisory Committee, hired Bill Cluck, a Harrisburg-based environmental lawyer. Last November Cluck and TRRAAC appealed the state Department of Environmental Protection's approval of the dump remediation plan.

That appeal is not going to stop the project, which should be completed  this summer before the state's Environmental Hearing Board rules on the appeal. Depositions have not yet been taken in the case.

But Cluck — TRRAAC's sole spokesman at this point — says overturning DEP's approval at any time could scare away Norfolk Southern, which would not want to take on the liability of operating a rail yard constructed on a remediation site that has been rejected by the state.

Cluck believes it is also important to keep pressure on the project's sponsors because they have "wasted" taxpayers' money on parts of the plan without ever fully informing the public of what's going on.

"This is an outrageous waste of taxpayer money without adequate verification," he says.

TRRAAC claims it has been denied adequate information since the project was announced. Since TRRAAC appealed DEP approval five months ago, project sponsors have cited litigation in progress and will not communicate with the organization at all.

Cluck is most concerned that the project will not deal properly with complex environmental issues at the dump.

To explore some of Cluck's concerns, the New Era visited the dump site and talked with workers there to see what precautions they are taking.

The dump's 8.8 acres has been  cleared of vegetation and surrounded by a "supersilt" fence to keep sediment from running off into the  nearby Little Conestoga Creek.

The plot has been divided into 44 excavation cells by the ARM Group of Hershey, the project's environmental engineering firm.

A large backhoe digs out trash and dirt from one cell at a time. ARM supervisors on the scene check this trash for toxic material before trucks haul it away to the LCSWMA landfill.

One of the supervisors is a licensed asbestos inspector, trained to spot any asbestos that Armstrong World Industries dumped into the landfill years ago. The inspector also looks for metals, sludge or other toxic wastes.

Since digging began, according to Ned Wehler, CEO of ARM, only one roll of Armstrong linoleum with asbestos backing has been found. Smaller pieces of linoleum carrying asbestos also have been pulled from the dump.

Wehler says no asbestos in any form has been friable, meaning brittle and prone to break apart into air-borne fibers.

In addition to visual inspection, an asbestos meter continuously operates to detect asbestos fibers in the air. None has been found, according to Wehler.

As a further safeguard, air filtered through sampling pumps is sent to a testing lab every night. Wehler says laboratory results have been negative.

"When we went into the project, based on our (test) borings, we thought that perhaps more than 10 percent of the waste might involve old flooring tile from Armstrong," Wehler says. "We're running well under 1 percent."

Most of the material in the dump, visible in a cutaway at its edge, is innocuous trash — sand, concrete, bricks, rubber tires — hauled there by Lancaster City over the years.

Before trucks carrying trash and soil leave the site, their wheels are washed in a closed water system so that no toxic materials are carried out on tires.

After the trucks dump this waste at the county landfill, they haul clean dirt back to the site and dump it into the excavated cells. This dirt is compacted immediately.

This process — slowed by rain in recent days — will continue until the dump is cleaned, refilled and raised to a suitable level. Then Norfolk Southern will construct its new rail yard.

When completed, the yard's 12 sets of tracks will connect with the main freight line at both ends, enabling cars to move on or off the yard in either direction.

Norfolk Southern will be able to add 171 rail cars to its current local storage capacity of 304, according to Keith Orris, the F&M vice president in charge of the overall project.

He says the added cars will improve the railroad's ability to serve Lancaster County and western Chester County.

Wehler says the dump should be fully remediated by sometime in July. About 25 percent of the work has been completed.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Lancaster County Soil Conservation District periodically dispatch inspectors to the cleanup site.

If state inspectors find something wrong, they will order the people in charge to fix it, says John Krueger, manager of the DEP's regional environmental cleanup program.

"We're giving this project a little more attention than normal because it's high profile," he says, "but we would only inform the public if we thought there was some release or threat to the public."

So far all monitoring has been normal, Krueger notes. DEP has issued no citations.

RELATED ARTICLES:
• SPECIAL REPORT: Northwest Gateway Project
• Neighbors' concerns: How valid are they?

Staff writer Jack Brubaker can be reached at jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781.