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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 2011
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THE TIMES LEADER
www.timesleader.com
DON CAREY/THE TIMES LEADER
George White gives a presentation of proposed trails in the Greater Wilkes-Barre area Tuesday at Wilkes University.
Trail plan aims to link sites Kingston and Wilkes-Barre master trail proposals explained at Wilkes event.
George White goes over proposed trails in the Kingston area Tuesday at Wilkes University. The Kingston Area Trail will run northeast into Wyoming and southwest into Larksville.
By EILEEN GODIN Times Leader Correspondent
WILKES-BARRE – Already matching up his current bike route with proposed trail expansion, avid bicyclist Dr. John Koch of Wilkes University was excited about the concept of the trail and greenway expansion project unveiled on Tuesday night. An event titled “Celebrating Luzerne County’s Great Trails and Greenways” was held 7 to 9 p.m. in the ballroom of the Henry Student Center at Wilkes. It goal was to roll out two master plans, the Kingston master trail proposal and Wilkes-Barre master trail proposal, and celebrate the current trail systems. Other trail organizations, such as the Anthracite Scenic Trails Association, the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, the Riverfront Parks and Wyoming Valley Riverfest among others were on hand to show off the current trails and amenities. Koch, who said he can ride about 50 miles or more in a day, said the idea of linking trails together to give one safe path through communities is great. “I know it will not happen overnight,” he said. “But it is nice to see the overall goal.” George White, design consultant on the project, walked about 50 people through the Kingston and Wilkes-Barre master plans. There is no determined start date on the plans. The date de-
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connect to a proposed Carey Avenue connector trail, which then would lead from Hanover Township into Wilkes-Barre’s planned D&L Black Diamond trail and end at the old train station off WilkesBarre Boulevard. Ted Kross, of the city Department of Health, said plans to transform the old station into a welcome center for Wilkes-Barre would be a convenient area for trails to meet. The master plan contains several proposed and planned trails. George White, design consultant, said planned trails were previously recommended and proposed trails are new to the overall plan. Proposed trails would include: D&L Black Diamond, Ridge to River Trail, Luzerne County National Recreation Trail, Parsons Trail, South Sherman Street Trail and Bikeway, East End Trail and
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pends on funding and volunteerism from local communities. “The main focus will be the waterfront,” White said. When planning out the routes, he said, he started with an old railroad map from 1892 and overlaid it with current maps. “The coal era left behind railroad beds and canals,” he said. “You have some great opportunities to do some great things with trails. It could become a real destination for hikers, joggers and bicyclists.” Examining the maps, White said, everything amazingly fits together. Through the connections, the trails can link parks, playgrounds, schools and colleges. The Kingston Master Plan will consist of four main trail proposals, including the Back Mountain Extension, Kingston Area Trail, the Larksville Connector Trail and the Backroad Bike Route. Starting with the end of the Back Mountain Trail in Luzerne, White said, the goal is to connect this trail to the Luzerne County Levee Trail. This will be done by utilizing Bikeway, Plains Trail, Carey Avenue Connector Trail, and the Newtown Trail. In February, city officials adopted the proposed master plan. Kross said the city had given $25,000, which it received through a grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, to cover research and consulting fees. Other funding for research and planning was provided by the Anthracite Scenic Trail Association, the Delaware and Leigh National Heritage Corridor, the Wyoming Valley Wellness Trails Partnership, and the Edith Reynolds Trust. White said the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources funded the majority of the study. Details on state money spent were not available Tuesday. White said he proposes to use about 10 to 15 miles of unused rail lines as possible trail routes. In some locations the trail might “piggyback along low-use (active) lines,” he said. White examined railroad maps
Taking action A Luzerne County judge approved a temporary injunction against eight merchants on Tuesday banning the sale of the highly hallucinogenic legal substance known as bath salts.
passages under the Cross Valley Expressway running parallel to Union Street. The trail will then pick up on an abandoned railroad reaching the Kingston Recreation Center. Showing a map, White described how the levee trial will connect to the Kingston Trail and the Susquehanna Warrior Run trail, which extends into Shickshinny. The Kingston Area Trail will run northeast into Wyoming and southwest into Larksville. The Larksville Connector Trail will run behind Romanoskey Park and link up to the Backroad Bike Route running parallel to Courtdale Avenue. The Wilkes-Barre Master Plan consists of nine proposed trails that will utilize old railroad beds, smaller levee systems and sidewalks. White said the trail systems will link communities in a safe manner. Wilkes-Barre resident Allen Kotansky, formerly of Hazleton, said he has not used the trail systems yet, but after seeing the information, is anxious to get out there and enjoy them. dating back to 1892 to identify possible railroad beds, and then he went looking for them. The low grade of railroad beds will provide an even surface to walk or bike ride. “There is a spider web of old railroad lines,” he said. “The availability of the railroad beds made the project possible.” The use of the old beds will not affect any future use of the current railroad system. He explained that years ago there were separate rail lines used for a specific purpose such as for coal, freight, passengers, timber and ice harvesting. “Some have not been used for100 years,” White said. The large project does not have a determined timeline yet. Kross estimates it could take five to 10 years before the entire project is completed. White said identifying possible trails and rolling out the proposed plan to gain public support is the first step. The second, he said, is finding funding to make the plan become a reality.
VIDEO:
Bath salts banned in Luzerne County
PETE G. WILCOX PHOTOS/THE TIMES LEADER
Scott Cannon of Plymouth speaks during public comment on the topic of treating water used in the fracking process for extracting natural gas from the ground. Cannon was making his comments at Tuesday’s Wyoming Valley Sewer Authority meeting in Hanover Township.
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What life are they going to have?” Leeann Wallace, a resident of the Bresleau section of Hanover Township and head of a newlyformed citizens group opposing the plan, asked individual members of the board questions about frack water treatment, which they couldn’t answer. “They’re supposed to be educating their townships,” Wallace said. “How can they educate their townships when they don’t know what’s going on?” Minora called Wallace’s method of questioning unfair and said the board hired his firm to conduct the feasibility study. Minora said 80 percent of the water treated at the plant would be returned to drillers for reuse in drilling, and the remaining 20 percent would be treated a second time using a reverse osmosis process that removes salt and dissolved solids from the water. “It’s much cleaner than the treated effluent that we currently discharge, and it’s cleaner than the water that’s already in the Susquehanna,” he said, adding that many of the chemicals that would be removed from the water are found in much higher concentrations in gasoline and diesel fuel than they are in frack water. The WVSA is considering three options for bringing water to the plant for treatment: pipe, rail and trucking. If trucks are used, the authority is planning
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drilling wastewater is treated by sewer authorities, largely in western Pennsylvania, and discharged into rivers. Those wastewater plants, however, are ill-equipped to remove all the pollutants, and the state still allows hundreds of millions of gallons of the partially treated wastewater to be discharged into rivers from which communities draw drinking water. The state Department of Environmental Protection cited elevated levels of bromide in rivers in western Pennsylvania in its announcement. "Now is the time to take action to end this practice," acting DEP Secretary Michael Krancer said in a statement Tuesday. Bromide is a salt that later reacts with the chlorine disinfectants used by drinking water sys-
PHOTOS:
Pittston Area walks off against WVW
Wyoming Valley Sewer Authority Chairman James Hankey tries to keep order during public comment when the topic of treating frack water at the sewer authority is brought up during Tuesday’s board meeting in Hanover Township.
to construct a road along the rear edge of Cohen Recycling Resources leading from the San Souci Parkway to WVSA Drive, so that no vehicles headed to the plant would pass by homes in the neighborhood around the authority. He also said building the plant would generate income for the authority that would provide funding to build EPA upgrades at the current WVSA facility and alleviate the need for future rate increases. It would also directly add as many as 20 jobs in the community as well as indirectly create jobs for truck drivers, inject money into the local economy and improve road conditions in the township, Minora said. Audience members questioned all those points, at times
booing Minora and the board and shouting out of turn. “We still live in a democracy, and if the people of Hanover don’t want this… being crammed down their throats, they should have the opportunity to say no, and the board should listen,” Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition founder Tom Jiunta said after the meeting. Minora and board Chairman James Hankey said they would take opposition to the plan voiced at the meeting into consideration. “You’ve got the gas people here and the anti-gas people here, and somewhere in the middle, there’s the truth,” Hankey said after the meeting. “Everybody has their spin on things.”
tems and creates trihalomethanes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that trihalomethanes can be harmful to people who drink water with elevated levels of the chemical for many years. Officials at Pittsburgh-area drinking water authorities in Beaver Falls and Fredericktown say their facilities have flunked tests for trihalomethanes in the past couple years. Complicating the matter is that, in addition to gas drilling, Pennsylvania’s multitude of acid-leaching, abandoned coal mines and other industrial sources are also a major factor in the high salt levels that lead to trihalomethanes in drinking water. The state imposed tougher wastewater treatment standards for drilling wastewater in August, although it still allowed facilities that had been permitted to accept drilling wastewater before August to continue accepting limited amounts under the
same treatment standards. Fifteen of those 27 facilities that were grandfathered under the August rules were still accepting the wastewater, the DEP said. "While there are several possible sources for bromide other than shale drilling wastewater, we believe that if operators would stop giving wastewater to facilities that continue to accept it under the special provision, bromide concentrations would quickly and significantly decrease," Krancer said in the statement. Kathryn Klaber, president of the industry’s Marcellus Shale Coalition, said she would provide specifics in the coming days about actions that coalition members will take in an effort to reduce the amount of bromide that ends up in the state’s rivers. Her organization came to that conclusion after seeing new research from Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, Klaber said.