PENNSYLVANIA SITE FIGHT: SUSPICION OVER STABILIZATION PLAN

Wal-Mart reps unveil plans for stabilization [Sewickley (Penn.) Herald]

Al Norman has been fighting urban sprawl since Wal-Mart attempted to put a store in his small town in northern Massachusetts in 1993.

Residents of Greenfield, Mass., ultimately voted against changing zoning laws to allow a supercenter to move in. Now Norman wants other communities to be able to do the same.

“I felt other communities should have help going up against the wealthy developers and town officials,” said Norman, 60, speaking from his cell phone on a Boston street corner.

“Over the past 14 years I’ve learned that that combination can be devastating.”

In response, he founded Sprawl-Busters, an international clearinghouse that helps citizen groups strategize.

Norman contacted Communities First!, a local organization that’s been against the building of the Kilbuck Wal-Mart Supercenter, five years ago when plans for the site were just beginning.

On Monday, Sprawl-Busters called hundreds of residents from the area surrounding the Route 65 site to evaluate the climate, one of the first steps to getting people organized.

“But ultimately, it depends on the people on the ground.”

While Norman didn’t have the results of the survey as of Tuesday afternoon, the nearly 100 residents who attended Tuesday evening’s meeting with a Wal-Mart spokesperson and representatives from Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Transportation and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources showed that while those opposed to the Wal-Mart may not be organized, they are well represented.

At the meeting, Wal-Mart presented its three-phase plan to stabilize the 75-acre property, part of which collapsed and created a massive landslide on Sept. 19 last year.

The plan is under review by the state’s geotechnical team of seven geologists and engineers from various departments.

Jim Davis, Wal-Mart spokesperson, said the retailer was committed to permanently stabilizing the site, but would not address whether the company, Pennsylvania’s largest employer, still plans to develop the property.

“Wal-Mart is trying to do the right thing with this situation tonight, tomorrow and the weeks to follow,” Davis said.

But the path to full stabilization, according to Robert Bachus of Geosyntec Consultants, an engineering firm hired by Wal-Mart, wouldn’t be completed until mid-2009.

Since taking over the site in March, Wal-Mart has been “aggressively working on site-stabilization activities and has significantly increased interaction with the state and local regulatory agencies,” the plan said.

Wal-Mart is monitoring the site three times per week, according to Davis, so a repeat of September’s landslide doesn’t occur.

But for local residents, stabilization of the former Dixmont State Hospital site isn’t enough.

“I’d like to see them maybe put a park up there or walk away from the project completely,” said Ronald Panyko, a Glenfield Borough councilman.

Communities First! member Joan Miles of Sewickley has been opposed to the Wal-Mart plan since it was announced.

“It’s not appropriate for a development of that magnitude to move to that site,” said Miles, who is also a member of the legislative task force advisory board created earlier this year.

“I want the process to move forward, but I want it to move forward responsibly,” Miles’ husband, Clifford Bob, said.

Bob also called for Wal-Mart to take responsibility for the landslide, but Davis refused to discuss Wal-Mart’s position on the matter.

“We do what we think is right,” said Davis, but refused to address the question.

Bob Keir of Ben Avon and a member of Communities First! questioned Wal-Mart’s ability to properly assess the site since they have so much at stake.

Keir called for a third-party study of the site to be done by a Communities First!-hired geotechnical consultant, Chris Ryan.

Ryan’s conclusions, based on a summary of his 10-page report, say the design goes beyond what is required to stabilize the slide.

He also asserts the creation of the building pad will require building an extraordinarily high and steep soil wall adjacent to Route 65—Geo-syntech plans to place a 100-foot wall there—as well as two other similar structures to hold back earth at different parts of the project.

Wal-Mart-hired consultants had no response to Ryan’s claims.

Other residents, after having a chance to review the plans prior to the meeting, voiced their opinions on what, they said, looked more like a site plan than a stabilization plan, but Davis pointed out that there are currently no roads in the plan to bring shoppers to the site that is owned by Wal-Mart, Kilbuck Properties and Applebee’s.

“We will not review, contemplate or decide on anything concerning the property until it has been property stabilized,” he said.

For Norman and local residents, Wal-Mart’s decision to hold off on making decisions wasn’t good enough.

“They’re asking people who drive down Route 65 to take a risk so Wal-Mart can make more money,” he said. “They should have packed up their suitcase and left a long time ago.”