http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/11839695.htm
Cleanup means work for railroad
New track would be built if Bauxsol wins approval
By Mike Joseph
mjoseph@...
The Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad, accustomed to
hauling thousands of tons of quarried rocks out of
Centre County to build roads, will haul thousands of
tons of a chemical product into the county to clean
one up.
The railroad is under contract to pull 40 carloads of
Bauxsol -- that's 4,000 tons of the acid-mine-drainage
cleanup product being tested by state road builders in
hopes it will answer a 16-month puzzler: how to
protect Skytop streams and well water from
contamination for the best price.
The test shipment is enough to treat about 55,000
cubic yards of the acidic rocks. That's 6 percent of
the 918,000 cubic yards of pyritic rocks in spoil
piles and fill areas at the Interstate 99 construction
site that are leaching sulfuric acid and threatening
streams and groundwater.
If the 40 rail cars full of Bauxsol win approval and
the state Department of Transportation uses it to
clean up the entire construction site, there'll be a
lot more business for the railroad -- enough to
warrant construction of a new side track near Port
Matilda to unload it.
"There's 4,000 tons coming," railroad General Manager
Phil Lucas said Tuesday from his Bellefonte office.
"This is just a test shipment. If the stuff works out,
then there's the possibility of -- I can't remember
the exact tonnage -- a substantial amount."
The 4,000 tons of powdery red Bauxsol is now being
shipped in bulk in the cargo hold of a barge that
departed St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands last
week. It is scheduled to dock this week at Port
Chesapeake, near Virginia Beach.
The Bauxsol will be loaded onto low-slung gondola rail
cars. With sides only six feet high, the gondola cars
are designed to carry about 100 tons of dense material
such as Bauxsol.
Virginia-based Norfolk Southern Railway will haul the
Bauxsol to Lock Haven, where the Nittany & Bald Eagle
Railroad will take over and move the cars through the
Bald Eagle Valley to just east of Port Matilda. The
first 1,000 tons -- 10 rail cars -- is expected by the
end of the month.
From the Port Matilda tracks, Lucas said, the Bauxsol
will be loaded onto off-road construction trucks that
will take the material to the remediation site at
Skytop on the Bald Eagle Ridge.
"We'll unload this test shipment right off main
track," Lucas said. "If we do indeed get the business,
if this Bauxsol works out, we'll probably build a side
track for it."
Cleanup means work for railroad
New track would be built if Bauxsol wins approval
By Mike Joseph
mjoseph@...
The Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad, accustomed to
hauling thousands of tons of quarried rocks out of
Centre County to build roads, will haul thousands of
tons of a chemical product into the county to clean
one up.
The railroad is under contract to pull 40 carloads of
Bauxsol -- that's 4,000 tons of the acid-mine-drainage
cleanup product being tested by state road builders in
hopes it will answer a 16-month puzzler: how to
protect Skytop streams and well water from
contamination for the best price.
The test shipment is enough to treat about 55,000
cubic yards of the acidic rocks. That's 6 percent of
the 918,000 cubic yards of pyritic rocks in spoil
piles and fill areas at the Interstate 99 construction
site that are leaching sulfuric acid and threatening
streams and groundwater.
If the 40 rail cars full of Bauxsol win approval and
the state Department of Transportation uses it to
clean up the entire construction site, there'll be a
lot more business for the railroad -- enough to
warrant construction of a new side track near Port
Matilda to unload it.
"There's 4,000 tons coming," railroad General Manager
Phil Lucas said Tuesday from his Bellefonte office.
"This is just a test shipment. If the stuff works out,
then there's the possibility of -- I can't remember
the exact tonnage -- a substantial amount."
The 4,000 tons of powdery red Bauxsol is now being
shipped in bulk in the cargo hold of a barge that
departed St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands last
week. It is scheduled to dock this week at Port
Chesapeake, near Virginia Beach.
The Bauxsol will be loaded onto low-slung gondola rail
cars. With sides only six feet high, the gondola cars
are designed to carry about 100 tons of dense material
such as Bauxsol.
Virginia-based Norfolk Southern Railway will haul the
Bauxsol to Lock Haven, where the Nittany & Bald Eagle
Railroad will take over and move the cars through the
Bald Eagle Valley to just east of Port Matilda. The
first 1,000 tons -- 10 rail cars -- is expected by the
end of the month.
From the Port Matilda tracks, Lucas said, the Bauxsol
will be loaded onto off-road construction trucks that
will take the material to the remediation site at
Skytop on the Bald Eagle Ridge.
"We'll unload this test shipment right off main
track," Lucas said. "If we do indeed get the business,
if this Bauxsol works out, we'll probably build a side
track for it."
Last edited by bwparker1 on Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:36 am, edited 1 time in total.