Monthly Archives: August 2015

what bishop tube looks like (and more legal stuff filed)

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DSC_8760I went to Malin Road and stood outside the fences of Bishop Tube today.  Totally creepy and deserted.  I was glad to see an unmarked police car do a drive by a couple minutes after I got there, the place gave me the willies.

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I took photos from outside the fencing on the road. What a weird feeling to be out on such a gloriously beautiful day, yet there was the overwhelming creepiness of the Bishop Tube Site, all abandoned and the only way to describe it was the place seems to radiate negative energy.  Don’t see how that feeling will be eradicated by plastic townhouses marching row after row.  The site doesn’t appear to be particularly secure and given what appears to be vandalism, nor does itappear as if it has been for years has it?

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Staring at the site, I couldn’t help but wonder where the PA DEP was on this? I can find on the Internet where they were in the past, but not in the present. Or the EPA, which is so screwed up just read THIS and THIS and THIS.  Here let me share this:

The EPA Should Resign in Shame over Orange River

Let States Step Up to the Plate on the Environment

August 11, 2015 at 9:54 am

The scene was otherworldly. A river tinted orange by a toxic brew of heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, and other pollutants. Three million gallons of wastewater from an abandoned gold mine in rural southwestern Colorado flows slowly downstream. Communities are shutting off drinking water collection. Vacationers are being warned to avoid contact with the contaminated water.

The cause? None other than a mistake by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The Wall Street Journal reported details on the incident Sunday, noting that the spill was initially downplayed by the EPA, and that it was much larger than first reported. Most importantly, as of Sunday, the mine is still releasing wastewater at a rate of about 500 gallons per minute. The pollution incident is ongoing.

This latest toxic release is yet another example of the EPA spectacularly failing at its primary mission. As I’ve expressed in this space before, the government is not particularly competent at environmental remediation and management.

When you read things written by critics of the PA DEP, it is often not much better. Look these government agencies have good intentions but they all seem to get in their own way and in the end are the accomplishing their goals of protecting all of us?

Just check out this article from 2014 about fracking contaminating drinking water :

The Pennsylvania DEP has been criticized for its poor record of providing information on fracking-related contamination to state residents. In April, a Pennsylvania Superior Court case claimed that due to the way DEP operates and its lack of public record, it’s impossible for citizens to know about cases where private wells, groundwater and springs are contaminated by drilling and fracking.

“The DEP must provide citizens with information about the potential harm coming their way,” John Smith, one of the attorneys representing municipalities in the lawsuit, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “If it doesn’t record and make available the violations records then it is denying the public accurate information, which is unconscionable.”

When is the last time the PA DEP or EPA took a good look at sites like Bishop Tube in Pennsylvania?  These aren’t new sexy disasters, they are plodding along existing trouble spots so now that there don’t appear to be lots of  government money floating around for clean up ( a la “Growing Greener“) who cares about these toxic sites like Bishop Tube?

Now the PA DEP mentions Bishop Tube in it’s 2014 report, yes but it isn’t in so much detail is it? I found the annual reports on the DEP website which crashes a lot. So where are State Representative Duane Milne and State Senator Andy Dinniman on Bishop Tube?  Aren’t they supposed to be looking after Chester County residents on this topic as well?

I happened to check the court dockets on the Bishop Tube litigation mention in prior posts when I came home and there are a few more filings on the case of ordinary hard-working people vs, everyone involved around Bishop Tube.  Here are the two most interesting:

Plaintiff Memorandum Response Bishop Tube 2015

Amended Complaint With Jury Demand Bishop Tube 2015 Aug 12

Apparently although The Daily Local did that curtain raiser of an article a couple of weeks ago, no other media seems interested in a toxic superfund site in bucolic Chester County? Or are there media inquiries and other inquiries starting to foment and ferment behind the scenes?

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Here are a couple of gems from all this legal stuff:

From the plaintiffs’ memorandum (2:15-cv-01919 (GJP) filed 8/10/15):

Table of Auth

Page 4: “The Plaintiffs have alleged that, during the Defendants’ respective ownership and operation thereof, they discharged hazardous substances into the environmental which have migrated onto and into the Plaintiffs’ property including the Plaintiffs’ drinking water. It is further alleged that the Defendants have failed to remediate the contamination, the regulatory authorities have failed to require the Defendants to remediate the contamination and additional response work will be necessary.”

Page 6 “It is alleged in the Complaint that, during their respective periods of ownership and operation of the Bishop Tube site, the Defendants used or permitted the use of hazardous substances, including trichloroethylene (“TCE”), during the manufacturing processes for their seamless stainless steel and other products and that, as a result of the Defendants’ ownership and operations at the Bishop Tube site, hazardous substances, including TCE, were disposed into the environment, including the Bishop Tube site’s soils and groundwater. See Complaint,¶¶34-35. It is further alleged that subsurface migration of contaminated groundwater from the Bishop Tube site has and continues to contaminate the aquifer beneath the Bishop Tube site and beneath off-site premises including the Plaintiffs’ home. See Complaint, ¶36.”

Page 7 “Accordingly, in or about 1999, the PADEP took over response actions at the Bishop Tube site, which included periodic sampling of soil, surface water, groundwater, vapor intrusion pathway analysis and maintenance of monitoring wells in the contaminated aquifer as well as the installation of a soil vapor extraction and air sparging system designed to capture and remove contamination from subsurface soils at the Bishop Tube site. See Complaint, ¶¶42-43.

However, none of the Defendants have taken any steps to actively remediate the contamination that originated on the Bishop Tube site, which has and continues to migrate onto the Warren property and neither the EPA nor the PADEP have taken any steps to compel such remedial activity. See Complaint, ¶44. Further response action is necessary to abate the release of the hazardous substances at the Bishop Tube site which have and continue to migrate onto the Warren property. See Complaint, ¶45.”

A Notice of Intent to Sue was served on all Defendants as well as the EPA and PADEPon December 8, 2014, to which no one responded”

Page 11: “III. Plaintiffs’ RCRA Claim Must Not Be Dismissed

Johnson Matthey next argues that the Plaintiffs’ RCRA claim must be dismissed because it does not adequately allege an “imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment” and because the State is diligently addressing the contamination.

However, as described in detail above, the Complaint alleges that TCE contamination from the Bishop Tube site has migrated into the Plaintiffs’ well water. TCE is a volatile organic compound “used mainly as a solvent to remove grease from metal parts, but it is also an ingredient in adhesives, paint removers, typewriter correction fluids, and spot removers.

Trichloroethylene is not thought to occur naturally in the environment. However, it has been found in underground water sources and many surface waters as a result of the manufacture,use, and disposal of the chemical.” There is evidence that TCE affects the developmental and nervous systems in humans and is also carcinogenic. Specifically, there is evidence that TCE can cause kidney cancer and limited evidence for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and liver cancer as well as various tumors in animals. See United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Toxic Substances Portal for TCE, http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/substances/toxsubstance.asp?toxid=30 (last visited August 7,2015).

Accordingly, it is respectfully submitted that it is disingenuous for Johnson Matthey to claim that Plaintiffs have not adequately alleged sufficient imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment to sustain a RCRA claim.”

Page 13: “Conclusion

Simply stated, in support of their federal CERCLA and RCRA claims, the Plaintiffs have alleged that: (1) the Defendants, including Johnson Matthey, discharged hazardous substances, including TCE, into the environment at the Bishop Tube site which have migrated onto the Plaintiffs’ property and, specifically, into their drinking water; (2) that the Defendants have failed to remediate the contamination; (3) that the regulatory authorities have failed to require the Case 2:15-cv-01919-GJP Document 6 Filed 08/10/15 Page 12 of 13 10 Defendants to remediate the contamination; and (4) that additional response work will be necessary. Indeed, TCE is a carcinogenic. Based on the foregoing, it is respectfully submitted that the Plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts, which must be presumed true for purposes of this Motion, to withstand a Motion to Dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the FRCP”

From First Amended Complaint With Jury Demand:

Page 5: 37: “During their respective periods of ownership and operation of the Bishop Tubesite, the Defendants used or permitted the use of hazardous substances, including trichloroethylene (”TCE”), during the manufacturing processes for their seamless stainless steel and other products.”

 TCE

const dr ptnerbish tuNegligence Bishop Tube80 81Ok above are just snippets of the legal documents, quotes, excerpts. You can read for yourself the entire thing as they are uploaded in this post:

Amended Complaint With Jury Demand Bishop Tube 2015 Aug 12

Plaintiff Memorandum Response Bishop Tube 2015

I did not create any of this it is all on the court record.

I am a cancer survivor. I would not wish that on anyone. I have also known people who have seen their children through cancer and trust me, it is too gut wrenching for words. In my opinion based on the research available to publicly peruse, this is site is toxic is it not? And then there is General Warren Village.  Those residents deserve peace of mind don’t they?  They have always been directly affected by Bishop Tube haven’t they?

I am a realist. This might be a creepy site but it is this chunk of land that developers are salivating over (don’t know if they are glowing in the dark from walking around it, however.) This site will be made into something although really it should be cleaned up and left alone since it is also my opinion that this site will take years to properly remediate, and can’t you agree that is reasonable?

But the thing is this: a plan like that not only affects people who want their piece of the American Dream and want to live in gorgeous Chester County who might purchase these cram plan slab on grade no basement wonders if they are built, but potentially every east Whiteland resident in the future, correct?

How can East Whiteland say for certain they would not ever become a party over litigation surrounding this site?  They can’t, can they?  And they have an obligation to current and future residents to see beyond the shiny promises of developers oh so familiar to them, see beyond and some new ratables  down the road, and must put their heads down and see that this site is properly remediated and even get alternate land uses investigated, right? The bottom line is the owner of the land knows how to remediate this properly, they have the experience, correct?

Approving a development plan here while this litigation is ongoing and remediation isn’t complete can be considered a case of putting the cart before the horse, yes? And why is it all we hear is about the developer planning on “capping vapors” with the concrete slabs for the townhouses, yet the current litigation mentions aquifer again and again which is ground water, drinking water, and so on, right? A little different from vapors, right?

East Whiteland has a lot of development balls in the air and should we worry about how the land planning with all the developer driven zoning overlays are getting done?

East Whiteland, you have to do this right. Lives depend upon it. Please.

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malvern fire company pig roast

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August 22, 2015

3:00 PM to 8:00 PM

At The Malvern Fire Company located at 424 E. King Street in Malvern

$15 per person

Advance ticket purchase preferred and only a limited number of tickets available at the door!

Call 610-633-4233

JVaughn@malvernfireco.com

 

rainy day mind ramblings

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 I woke up this morning listening to the rain on the roof and it falling all around us. We had the windows open last night, so the rain patter sounds were all around us.  In the pre-dawn stillness of when even the birds aren’t awake yet, it reminded me of being little at the beach in the rain.

I am sure some of you have memories of  rain at the beach? When the air is just full of that salty grey almost puffy fluffy heaviness? The air is not only wet and heavy but the mist seems to have a life of it’s own. But it isn’t an unpleasant heaviness as it was often a break from land breezes and end of summer hot and humid weather. 

When it rained at the beach it was like the sea and air met as one. I remember going as a little girl to the then tiny and old Avalon, NJ library. Not the new library that stands today, but the little old dark one which still stood in the early 1970s. When you went up the stairs and opened the doors they gave that old creaky and heaving sound. Inside the library was dark and had that beach smell of sand and mildew. I remembered picking out well worn copies of Nancy Drew books to take home and read. Or maybe we would go to the Paper Peddler and buy a book or a copy of Mad Magazine (which my mother hated).    

 Also when it was a rainy day, it was the perfect time to go down to the Avalon Pier. On the beach at 29th street it was a movie theatre and shops, and I also remember Skee Ball. I also remember a tiny cedar shake shingled general store down around 7th or 8th street that had penny candy. Once when we were really little a friend of our parents and their friends named Weezy gave us each $1 and told us to go blow our minds. Root beer barrels, Charleston Chews, Mary Janes, those little colored sugar dots on white paper, caramels, and more.

Rainy or overcast days also remind me of the annual photo taking of my sister and I at the beach. They seemed to have been taken towards the end of summer after my mother had doused our hair throughout the summer with lemon juice (and peroxide ) to give us blonde highlights (and strict instructions not to tell anyone, especially our father that she was doing this.) 

In those days, Avalon had really tall dunes and the island began at 7th street. The first few blocks of Avalon washed away before I was born. That was the famous Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962, which was truthfully a Hurricane Sandy-like storm. But the only a block of houses were swallowed by the sea at that time – 6th street. Below that had never been developed because of tides. This 1962 storm was what caused the Avalon Hotel to be moved to 8th street. As a little girl I remember looking out over those beaches down by 7th street and wondering what the swallowed block of houses looked like? Was it a perfect bunch of houses just underwater like the fictional Atlantis, or a jumble of destruction? 

 The dunes were so huge when I was little. I remember going through the twisty beach paths with mountains of sand and dune grass and scrubby pines and even some old beach (probably rugosa) roses. This is where I first fell in love with black eyed Susan’s and beach daisies which grew in and on the edges of the dunes along with other wild flowers and cacti. In the summers when I was little too you could often see the sea turtles come ashore and lay their eggs and then wait for them to hatch and see all the little turtles head for the sea.  

Rainy days and winter days like this were always my favorites on the beach. You would come through the dunes to the wide open and empty beaches. All you saw was the wildness of the ocean as it churned and sea gulls and sand pipers and other shore birds. A day like today would have been a perfect day for finding shells and beach glass and drift wood.

  Days like today also remind me of a cabin owned when I was little by family friends. It was in Avalon on 13th street. It was originally owned by Woodrow Wilson when he was at Bryn Mawr College. I found it listed on the Internet today and was delighted to see that not only is it still standing but it is remarkably unchanged except for updated appliances from when we were kids! I remember the sound of rain when you were on the front porch and when you were upstairs in one of the two bedrooms under the eaves of the house. 

It’s funny how certain kinds of days just take you back in time. I don’t go to Avalon any longer. I stopped years ago when it really got built up. Ironically, we went to Ocean City when I was really little and my sister was a baby. I think she was 3 or 4 when we moved to Avalon. We used to stay down in the Gardens when we went to Ocean City. It was a marvelous section of Ocean City, and yes, there were lawns and gardens. And Mimosa trees. 

I was pretty little when we went to Ocean City so I don’t remember everything, I remember more like snapshots here and there in my memory. When I was a little kid I loved Avalon. Probably because I loved that it was more open and the dunes were so magnificent. But I haven’t been to Avalon in years, or Ocean City except for a day trip a few years ago to see friends. Both towns are too built up now for me, but I still love Cape May and Cape May Point.

Anyway thanks for taking a trip down rainy day memory lane with me!

  

human shaming in phoenixville

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This is August. So cars heat up fast, don’t they? Especially in parking lots open to the sun, right?  And as you see that is a dog in a hot SUV earlier today. It was taken by a friend at the Redner’s parking lot in Phoenixville.  These people who own this Ford SUV should be ashamed of themselves!!!

 I wish the people who sent me the photos had taken photos with the license plate showing! This photo and the one below came with the following message:

We went shopping at Phoenixville Redner’s today. I waited in the car while the wife got a few things.

Some jerk left a poodle in a parked car. Driver window was open a couple inches, but the dog was frantic at first, then just laying on the seat panting like hell. 

A local cop came through, and I got his attention. He looked, and said “the window is open a little, and it’s a white car, it won’t get hot, besides this is private property, I have no jurisdiction”. The windows were heavily tinted, and too hot to put your hand on. 

I was about to break the glass when a young couple (about 6 people gathered by now) said they would go inside and have the manager put the vehicle, license plate, and business name on the P.A. system that their window was about to be broken. A volunteer firefighter had a rescue tool, and said he would give them 5 minutes. A girl with a water bottle squirted water through the cracked window on the dog, and it got up, and got a little. 

 Don’t know the final outcome. Even through the heavily tinted glass you can see the dog with it’s mouth wide open. 

So Redner’s in Phoenixville is in which township?  I would like to commend their officer who stopped for showing such caring and concern, wouldn’t you? Do you sense my sarcasm ? If  the officer was loath to break a window why couldn’t said officer have gone into the store to check for the irresponsible owner? Wow.

Kudos goes to the volunteer firefighter and others who sprang into action to try to help the dog.

Dogs give us unconditional love and devotion so it is really upsetting when you see stupid human tricks in action. 

There is a law being proposed in PA regarding keeping pets out of hot cars. Contact your legislators in PA ASAP about getting it passed!

New bill focused on keeping pets out of hot cars

Carolyn Blackburne 08/05/2015 06:54 PM08/05/2015 07:29 PM

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — A new bill proposed in the Pennsylvania legislature is focused on keeping animals out of hot cars. 


Farm manager at Greener Pasture’s Animal Shelter, Ryan Jacobs, said leaving a pet inside a car on a hot day can be a matter of life and death. Cats and dogs that are left in cars can die within five to ten minutes on days above 110 degrees.

“We already have laws like this for children, so I think it is important you take your dog out of the car when you go somewhere,” Jacobs said.


If an animal is left unattended in a car for more than five minutes, it can go into heat stroke.

  

UPDATE: the power of the Internet. Another person sent me a partial plate (missing one letter or digit) and told me that this shopping center is on the edge of Phoenixville Borough and apparently it was an unmarked police car and three police departments can be found on patrol around here (Phoenixville Borough, East Pikeland, and Schulkill Twp). And the static decal in the window is for a company called Unlimited Restoration which has an office in Pottstown.

  

yes, semi-homemade

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  I know some of you think I’m like a demented Martha Stewart and I do everything from scratch and that includes churn my own  butter. But truthfully, often I do it semi-homemade. And it tastes just fine.

What you were looking at are my cheaters carrot cake cupcakes. I call them cheaters because I start with a box cake mix.

I take a French vanilla cake mix, and I add four eggs, One cup of milk instead of the one cup of water called for on the package, one stick or 1/2 cup of butter melted and cooled slightly instead of vegetable oil. 

To that I add 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon, 1 1/2 teaspoons of cardamom, 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes, and 4 finally grated medium-sized carrots.

I add the dry cake mix and beat the better according to the package directions. Today I used a Betty Crocker super moist French vanilla mix.

I cook the cupcakes according to package directions which is 350° for 17 to 20 minutes and you have to keep an eye on it.  Once they are cool, I frost them with store-bought cream cheese frosting. I mixed my manufacturers and used Pillsberry frosting today.

I love making cupcakes I think they are fun and you can go on Amazon and through Wilton bakeware you can get all sorts of cute cupcake liners. And I use aluminum cupcake pans – they were my grandmother’s actually. I do not like a lot of dark metal non stick bakeware. I don’t like the way things cook in the nonstick.

Thanks for stopping by!

new spin on summer salad staple

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 So bean salad is a summer staple. One bean, two bean, three bean and more.

I decided to change it up. I took half a bag each of Goya dried navy beans and pinto beans yesterday and put them in to soak with salt and water overnight. I then cooked them according to directions on their packaging this morning.

While the beans were cooling I minced three large cloves of garlic, chopped fine one large red onion, chopped one fresh red bell pepper, peeled and chopped one fresh cucumber, and tossed into a bowl.

To that bowl I added salt and pepper to taste, 3 tablespoons of white table sugar , a bunch of fresh dill chopped, and a third of a cup of Italian flat leaf parsley chopped.

I mixed the salt and pepper, herbs and spices, along with the vegetables and drizzled olive oil and rice wine vinegar and red wine vinegar over the top of it and stirred some more.  I always add more vinegar than oil to bean salads.

I should’ve measured exactly how much oil and vinegar but I didn’t I’m sorry- you want basically enough that your salad gets coated and sort of pickled  but not enough that it swimming in dressing.

Last but not least I tossed in the beans which I had drained and mixed everything together, as well as adjusted for salt and pepper. I will now chill the salad down until this evening but it looks beautiful and tastes terrific!

a little peek inside the fox chase inn and barn

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Looking out the front porch at the Fox Chase Inn

Looking out the front porch at the Fox Chase Inn

So last week in the midst of a brilliant thunderstorm, off I went to photograph and tour the restoration of the Fox Chase Inn and barn on Swedesford Road in West Whiteland. Today I am going to share some of the photos I took with all of you with the property owner’s permission. I will be going back for more appropriate exterior shots sometime this week, it was just too wet when I took these photos to do the exterior justice. I even got my camera a tad wet getting inside it was raining so hard at times! The Fox Chase Inn is a brilliant example of restoration and adaptive reuse. And these people did it because they wanted to do it right. No one told them they had to. And their caring and attention to detail shows. For more on the history of the property check out this file from West Whiteland’s website: Fox Chase Inn West Whiteland Site 325_ historic information . Here are some photos of the restoration in progress – and it is amazing because this place was a wreck when they bought it: BARN: DSC_8607 DSC_8608 DSC_8610 DSC_8612 DSC_8613 DSC_8616 DSC_8617 DSC_8618 DSC_8621 DSC_8623 DSC_8630 DSC_8634 DSC_8635 DSC_8640 FARMHOUSE: DSC_8656 DSC_8712 DSC_8660 DSC_8661 DSC_8670 DSC_8675 DSC_8682 DSC_8684 DSC_8691 DSC_8664 DSC_8666 DSC_8694 DSC_8695 DSC_8697 DSC_8699 DSC_8700 DSC_8702 DSC_8703 DSC_8709 DSC_8710

requiescat in pace, rob lukens

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rob lukens

Rob Lukens was one of those people whom I wanted to get to know. But sadly, although we shared many friends and acquaintances in common, cancer has taken him away from his family and Chester County and I will never get that opportunity. Rob Lukens was President of the Chester County Historical Society.

He did many fabulous and amazing things when it comes to the history of where we live, Chester County, PA. I always enjoyed his articles which would appear on the Chester County Historical Society website and in the Daily Local.  The last one was this past May.

Rob lost his battle with cancer on August 1st.  As a cancer survivor, it always touches a very sad chord within me when someone else loses their battle.  As a survivor of breast cancer, I know I lead a charmed life, but this news just made me so sad and not just because of what Rob meant to the Chester County Historical Society and historic preservation here in Chester County, but because of his family. Rob leaves behind him a beautiful wife and equally beautiful children. To them I send my most heartfelt condolences.

If you admire people like Rob Lukens, I hope you will continue to support organizations like the Chester County Historical Society.  Every membership helps.

I will close this post with what the Chester County Historical Society released overnight:

It is with deep regret and a profound sadness that we inform you of the death of our President, Rob Lukens, PhD, August 1st, following a long fight with cancer. 

Rob became our President in 2011, although his association with the Chester County Historical Society began in 1993, over twenty years ago when Rob helped catalog, pack, and move museum objects as a volunteer during his undergraduate studies. Later, he was an intern at CCHS and then became our Collections Manager in 1998. Rob left CCHS in 2003 to become the Head of Collections at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. His career then took him to Historic Yellow Springs and the United States Capitol Visitors Center before bringing him back to the Historical Society, ready to lead the institution that he loved so much. 

Rob brought passion and a commitment to share Chester County’s history with the community beyond the walls of CCHS. He initiated a regular column in the Daily Local News, a weekly radio program on WCHE, and the extremely popular History on Tap series. His leadership brought much needed upgrades to our facilities and continuing plans for their improvement. Throughout his illness he remained committed to CCHS, especially in developing plans for our new permanent exhibition. 

George Zumbano, Chair of the CCHS Board of Trustees, spoke for all of us when he said that “Rob Lukens made an indelible mark on the Chester County Historical Society. It was a pleasure and an honor to work with him. His enthusiasm for our region’s history was contagious, and he brought a level of professional expertise that helped us move forward in innovative ways.” 

Rob was a devoted father, husband, son, brother, uncle, friend, and colleague. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Becky, his two children Abbie and Finn, and his entire family during this difficult time. 

Mr. Zumbano announced that David B. Reinfeld, who has served as Acting President of CCHS for the last two years, has been named Interim President. “David has done a remarkable job throughout this difficult time, and we are confident that CCHS remains in good hands.” 

The Chester County Historical Society Board of Trustees, staff members, and volunteers are grateful for the time that we had with Rob, and we will miss him dearly. His work, which is our work, will continue. 

Chester County Historical Society will post funeral details on its website when they are available.