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Progress? Bureaucrats stall road, stymie growth

2 min read

Here we go again. In jobs-hungry Fayette County, higher-level bureaucrats are threatening to hold up development of the Fayette County Business Park, located along New Salem Road and Route 40. This time the state Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have locked horns with the South Union Township supervisors over one acre of wetlands at the 277-acre site that’s rapidly being developed. The state and federal regulatory agencies are refusing to issue the permits needed for the Fayette County Redevelopment Authority, which is developing the site, to construct a much-needed road through the middle of the park. South Union Township Supervisor Bob Schiffbauer is worried that funding already acquired to upgrade New Salem Road and the Matthew Drive Extension could be jeopardized by the delay.

None of this makes any sense. The current stalemate is reminiscent of one that occurred a few years ago, in which PennDOT refused to issue required highway occupancy permits, based on projections of highway impact from development that had yet to occur. That conflict was ultimately resolved after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, at a high-level meeting arranged by state Sen. Richard A. Kasunic (D-Dunbar). In the end, we were left to wonder what all the fuss had been about.

If the same type of scenario is playing out now, it doesn’t speak well for the “all for one, one for all” trumpeting that goes on when it comes to everyone’s desire to bring jobs to the county. The township is willing to mitigate the wetlands loss by creating a new habitat in a different area of the affected watershed. But DEP officials have apparently balked at that notion.

So while Fayette Countians eagerly wait for officials to bang the jobs-producing engine in high gear, state and federal agencies are riding the brake. It doesn’t say much for across-the-board cooperation when a three-hour meeting yields no results, does it?

The supervisors’ next step is to contact Gov. Ed Rendell and other elected officials. But if we are to believe their often self-touted concern for economic growth, you’d think that they would have been abreast of this development all along.

Maybe it’s time for Kasunic to arrange another meeting.

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