Here is some stuff from our local papers:
From The Morning Call
Sinkhole in Nazareth causing traffic woes
Rt. 33 detour may last 2 weeks as PennDOT builds temporary lanes.
By Tom Coombe
Of The Morning Call
January 27, 2004
On Monday morning, a long line of cars crawled past the Nazareth Diner like a sleepy turtle. Usually a lot of drivers means a lot of business.
''I actually think it's hurting us,'' said Lori Hahn, a waitress at the diner. ''You can't get in and out of the parking lot. It was killing us here . It's awful, absolutely awful.''
The diner is at Broad Street and Route 248, a normally busy intersection that just got busier and could remain so for two more weeks.
The state Department of Transportation is detouring traffic through the Nazareth area while it deals with a sinkhole that has closed part of Route 33.
On Saturday morning, PennDOT closed the northbound lanes between Routes 248 and 191 after learning the sinkhole had caused the Route 33 bridge near Stockertown to buckle.
On Monday, PennDOT said it will take between one and two weeks to build a temporary crossover lane that would allow drivers to travel north on Route 33, with southbound traffic being reduced to one lane.
For now, drivers heading north must exit at Route 248, follow that road west to Route 191 in Nazareth and then take Route 191 back to Route 33. PennDOT is asking drivers heading north to the Poconos to use the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Northeast Extension.
The detour could mean a slow drive through Nazareth, depending on the time of day. The Routes 248-191 intersection, famous in Nazareth for heavy traffic, is now home to ''the worst traffic ever,'' according to Hahn. At 3 p.m. Monday, traffic stretched from the diner along Route 248 all the way back to Route 33, a distance of nearly two miles.
PennDOT spokesman Ron Young said work on the crossover, by Eastern Industries Inc. of Center Valley, would begin as soon as the weather allows. A crew from Nyleve Bridge Corp. of Emmaus was already at work Monday repairing the sinkhole.
Young said there's no way of knowing yet whether PennDOT will repair or replace the damaged bridge.
He said the state also would ''be keeping a close watch on the southbound bridge'' for sinkholes there.
''However,'' he added, ''sinkholes can occur anywhere at any time.''
That's not news to people living near that area of Route 33, who have spent at least three years dealing with sinkholes, including one that caused a bridge between Tatamy and Palmer Township to collapse into the Bushkill Creek. With this latest sinkhole affecting Northampton County's main north-south artery, officials hope to find a permanent solution.
State Rep. Rich Grucela, D-Northampton, said he and state Rep. Craig Dally, R-Northampton, will meet today with Secretary of Transportation Allen Biehler to discuss the problem.
State Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, said she also will try to attend the meeting ? although via conference call ? and said it's important that other parties, such as Northampton County and the Army Corps of Engineers, are involved in the process.
The Army Corps had offered to fix the Palmer-Tatamy sinkholes if state and local governments paid for part of the repairs.
Boscola got $100,000 from the state for the project, but local and county officials said they did not provide additional money because they did not want to assume liability. Boscola said Monday she's worried the money won't be spent before its June 30 expiration date.
Corps spokesman Ed Voigt said Monday that the Army Corps hadn't discussed any involvement in repairs to the Route 33 bridge.
''We think the situation is absolutely crucial,'' said Grucela, adding he wants Biehler's assurance that the southbound bridge is safe. Residents in the area wonder how safe they are in the meantime driving on the detour.
''If they think they had accidents before, wait until now,'' said Wesley Shoup, a Pen Argyl truck driver, making a stop along the detour route at the 7-Eleven in Upper Nazareth Township. ''I know exactly how it is to get through these towns with big trucks.''
Bad weather early Monday made it difficult to tell how the detour will affect local traffic. By 9 a.m., the line of cars that had surrounded the Nazareth Diner had faded, although Hahn said Sunday night the sound of cars buzzing by never stopped.
''This isn't a good day to tell. It's too early,'' said Tina Chumas, proprietor of the Texaco station on Route 191, the last stop before the detour ends in Stockertown. But even if extra traffic didn't bring more business to the station, Chumas saw firsthand the effect of the detour when she drove on Route 191 over the weekend.
''It was terrible,'' she said. ''I almost jumped out of the car, I was so stressed.''
Others said the detour isn't that big a deal. ''If you live around here, you know all the alternate routes to take,'' said Wayne Shupe of Bushkill Township, having coffee at the diner. ''We'll just go the back way. It won't affect us.''
tom.coombe@mcall.com
610-559-2157
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From The Morning Call
State will be asked to help fix sinkholes
Crossover planned on Route 33 to keep traffic moving.
By Steve Esack
Of The Morning Call
January 26, 2004
State legislators will petition the governor's office and the Department of Transportation today to help fix sinkholes that have caused a partial closure of Route 33 and plagued residents near Bushkill Creek for years.
State Rep. Richard Grucela, D-Northampton, said Sunday that he and Rep. Craig A. Dally, R-Northampton, are meeting with the House Transportation Committee and Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler to address the problem residents ? and motorists ? have had since sinkholes began opening in 2000 along the borders of Tatamy, Stockertown and Palmer Township.
''Thank God no one got hurt, but the residents were right,'' said Grucela. ''Sometimes citizens know more than the government, and this is one of those times. I'm going to ask that the whole area be studied.''
Said Dally: ''We want to make sure the problem gets the attention it deserves from the top down. It's obviously a problem that has affected the whole area, and now its affecting 33 as well as interstate traffic.''
PennDOT posted the detour at 8:30 a.m. Saturday after a motorist called state police to report that a northbound bridge, south of the Stockertown exit, had buckled. Later that day, PennDOT said the bridge fell six inches into a sinkhole in the Bushkill Creek and closed the bridge.
Northbound traffic still is being diverted off the Route 248 exit to Route 191 north through Nazareth and back to Route 33 at Stockertown. The detour will be in effect until PennDOT builds a crossover and closes one southbound lane of Route 33 to allow northbound traffic to flow again on the artery, which connects Interstates 78 and 80.
The northbound and southbound bridges are not connected; a 50- to 60- foot grassy median separates them. Between 40,000 and 50,000 vehicles pass over that span a day, according to PennDOT spokesman Ron Young.
He said Sunday that the department has contracted with Eastern Industries Inc. of Center Valley to plan and design a crossover. A cost has not been determined because under emergency situations, Young said, PennDOT does not have to go through its normal bidding process.
Young said when PennDOT engineers approve the plan, and weather permitting, Eastern Industries will begin construction. It should take about two weeks from the start date to complete, he said.
Although traffic was backed up for miles along Route 248 and 191 on Saturday, it was moving fine Sunday.
Nazareth police and state police at Belfast said that they are not planning to post additional officers along the detour, although traffic is expected to be bad in part because of the snow and sleet forecast for today.
''Route 33 is our number one north-south artery, and with this bad weather and so forth people are going to want to use the main arteries, not the back roads,'' said Northampton County Executive Glenn F. Reibman.
Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, said she will ask PennDOT to help with the sinkhole problem ''we knew about three years ago.''
Residents began complaining to government officials in the fall of 2000. A short time later, the small Stockertown-Tatamy Road bridge, near Route 33, was closed when chunks of the bridge fell into Bushkill Creek.
Two years later, the Army Corps of Engineers said it would fix the creek's sinkhole problems if local and state governments would foot the bill and agree to take care of future sinkholes. Boscola then obtained $100,000 for the county, but county and municipal officials said they would not take ownership, citing potential future liability.
''The Army Corps of Engineers was ready to fix the sinkholes, and state government was ready to fix the bridge ? but county government and the municipalities washed their hands of it,'' Boscola said. ''Now thousands of motorists are inconvenienced, and everyone is up in arms.''
Reibman said neither the county nor the municipalities can afford to take jurisdiction over the problem. ''We do not have the resources to handle the magnitude of what happens with sinkholes,'' Reibman said. ''There's only two government bodies that do: the state and federal governments. And she knows that.''
He said when the sinkholes first opened, Northampton County Council allocated $50,000 to fix them, ''and the county's money went right down the hole.''
Dru Germanoski, chairman of the Geology Department at Lafayette College, has studied sinkholes in and around the creek. Although Germanoski said he has not done a definitive study, he said he suspects the problem stems from a low groundwater level in the creek bed.
Normally, he said, creeks flows because of groundwater coming up through the surface. But, he said the opposite seems to be happening in Bushkill Creek. ''Surface water is flowing down into the groundwater, taking soil with it,'' Germanoski said.
He said two years ago, he and his students took stream measurements of the groundwater at wells near the Tatamy-Stockertown bridge and a railroad bridge, which also has been affected by sinkholes.
''As much as 30 percent of the stream water was flowing down into the groundwater level,'' he said.
Germanoski said sinkholes are located throughout the Route 33 area, not just around the Bushkill Creek streambed.
PennDOT's Young agreed. He said PennDOT's bridge unit is reviewing the original building plans to determine whether the bridge has to be replaced or can be repaired. Young added that PennDOT crews have been surveying the bridge, the last time in December, to see if it was in danger.
steve.esack@mcall.com 610-559-2151
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Lawmakers rush to find Rt. 33 fix
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
By JENNA PORTNOY
The Express-Times
Linda Iudicello predicted it.
State legislators put aside money to prevent it.
And Northampton County officials feared it could develop.
"It" happened Saturday morning when a sinkhole along the Bushkill Creek opened its gaping mouth, forcing a crack in the concrete foundation supporting the northbound side of the Route 33 bridge.
"Everything we have said to all the officials has come true. We hate to be right. I'd rather be wrong," Iudicello said. She and other members of The Brookwood Group have worked for more than three years to control the growing sinkholes that threaten the neighborhood.
The matter has fallen to state lawmakers who plan to meet with state Secretary of Transportation Allen D. Biehler today in hopes of forming a long-term plan to stop the muddy mess.
For now, a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation contractor is pouring concrete into the sinkhole to stabilize the north pier, which settled 6 to 7 inches, according to district engineer Walter E. Bortree.
"Once we stop the sinking, then we decide what type of repair is needed to get this back into operation," he said.
The next step probably will entail installing a series of pin piles in the rock around the existing pier, tying them to the pier using a concrete jacket and adding concrete to make the structure level, Bortree said. The depth of rock beneath the local pier varies from 17 to 30 feet.
"If that's successful, basically it's done," he said. The worst-case scenario -- rebuilding the bridge -- could take up to a year, he said.
In 2001, the New Jersey Department of Transportation took less than six months to rebuild the Interstate 80 bridge in Morris County, spokesman Mike Horan said. A truck fire had damaged the westbound side of the four-lane bridge.
Thirty years ago, the Route 33 bridge was built on "spread footing," a technique that evenly distributes weight onto soil underground. At that time, the soil was stable enough to handle the load and sinkholes were not looming, Bortree said.
Until the repair work is complete, two lanes will carry northbound and southbound traffic over the span, said PennDOT spokesman Ron Young. The state agency hired Eastern Industries of Center Valley to build crossovers, a project that could take one or two weeks, depending on the weather, Young said.
The sinkhole caught PennDOT off guard.
"There's no way to predict when they will occur or where they will occur," Young said.
But pinpointing Lehigh Valley sinkholes was exactly the goal William Kochanov had in mind when he created a map in the mid-1980s using PennDOT information.
Kochanov, now a senior geologist for the state Geological Survey, traced a procession of sinkholes running from northern Palmer Township into Bethlehem Township.
The sinkholes line up along the Route 33 corridor.
In response to damage incurred by Stockertown and Tatamy residents three years ago, state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton/Lehigh/Monroe, secured $100,000 to help fix the problem.
The Army Corps of Engineers agreed to perform the work, but neither Northampton County nor PennDOT was willing to take responsibility for reversing the natural phenomenon. The state money expires June 30.
"Each level of government has to come together, and at this point (the county is) the missing link," she said.
State Rep. Richard Grucela, D-Northampton, called the former PennDOT administration the stumbling block. He and Rep. Craig Dally, D-Northampton, also hope U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter can help garner federal funds.
PennDOT's Bortree noted that some trouble spots lie outside the agency's jurisdiction but welcomed a compromise.
"It's been a while since there was discussion on that," he said. "We welcome any forum to look at this issue and form a long-term solution to the problem."
In the meantime, sinkhole neighbor Iudicello is appalled to find strangers intruding on her property for a closer look at the sinkholes. In addition to putting up no trespassing signs, she is willing to call the police if it means preventing injury.
Mike Perlow, a 15-year veteran of sinkhole studies who had helped Iudicello's group, said that in the summer, drain water from nearby limestone quarries fills Bushkill Creek. The groundwater pressure forms sinkholes, he said.
County Council President J. Michael Dowd said the hole affecting Route 33 is potentially too deep for the county to afford to repair.
"Conceivably, if we had been able to step up a year ago with the Army Corps of Engineers, we might not be sitting where we are today," Dowd said.
"I think we were all afraid this could happen."
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Rt. 33 repairs to take time
Up to a year to fix bridge; crossover in two weeks. Traffic woes anticipated.
Monday, January 26, 2004
By RUSS FLANAGAN
The Express-Times
PALMER TWP. -- A stretch of northbound Route 33 will remain closed indefinitely and could cause a traffic nightmare when commuters hit the roads today.
Ronald Young, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said it would take about two weeks for engineers to construct a crossover lane that would enable northbound motorists to temporarily use one of the two southbound lanes over the Bushkill Creek between the Route 248 and Route 191 interchanges.
In the meantime, motorists will be forced to take a circuitous 4 -mile detour from Route 248 to Route 191 through the center of Nazareth. Commuters can then pick up Route 33 in Stockertown.
Young said there is no definitive timetable on when the northbound lanes might reopen.
"The road will be closed indefinitely until our engineers figure out whether we need to replace the bridge or not," Young said.
The stretch of road was closed Saturday morning when Pennsylvania State Police found that the northbound bridge spanning the Bushkill Creek was starting to dip, Young said. Engineers then inspected the bridge and found a sinkhole had opened up beneath the span and caused a large crack in one of the concrete support columns.
If the bridge needs to be replaced, the road could remain closed as long as a year, Young said.
"We don't know at this time" how long the bridge will be closed, Young said. "Things happen a lot faster under emergency situations than they do under normal circumstances."
Southbound traffic will not be immediately affected because the southbound bridge was constructed separately from the span carrying northbound traffic, officials said.
The closure is expected to make an already congested traffic situation worse as drivers approach Route 191 from Route 248 near the Essroc cement factory. Traffic was backed up more than a mile Sunday afternoon near the intersection and many frustrated motorists decided to make illegal U-turns to get out of traffic.
Nazareth Mayor Earl Keller said he is anticipating traffic delays through the center of town but may not be able to do anything about it.
"We'll take a good look at it tomorrow and decide what to do about it," Keller said. "At the moment, I don't see any big changes."
Some of those in the area said the closure would not affect them as long as shortcuts remain a secret.
"I know the back roads," said John Hughes of Palmer Township. "As long as I know where (the road is closed), I know how to get around it."
Roland Bell of Easton said he normally travels Route 33 to his job in Wind Gap but would take back-road shortcuts to avoid delays along the detour.
"It might cost me five minutes," Bell said as he headed into the Wegmans supermarket in Lower Nazareth Township.
Joan and Dave Hulbert of Wilson Borough were feeling the impact of the closure Sunday as they traveled near the Northampton Crossings shopping center.
"It's a real mess going up 248," Joan Hulbert said. "It's been tied up pretty good."
The closure of the bridge isn't the first time sinkholes have caused trouble on the infrastructure in Northampton County and particularly Route 33.
In October 2000, PennDOT closed the Bushkill Street bridge to traffic. A few months later, in March 2001, a chunk of the bridge fell while PennDOT surveyors were on site doing preliminary work for the bridge's replacement. The remainder of the bridge's north end collapsed the next day, cutting off foot traffic across the creek.
The bridge is expected to reopen next year.
William Kochanov, the senior geologist for the Pennsylvania Geological Survey in Middletown, said Sunday sinkholes occur randomly and are the result of water eating away at fragile limestone beneath the Earth's surface.
Kochanov said dormant sinkholes are like clogs in a drain. He said water is constantly trying to get to the underground water table and seeks the most open path or drain. Eventually the water will open the path completely and cause a sinkhole.
"They don't happen instantly. It takes a long time for drains to become unclogged," Kochanov said. "Then, boom! All of a sudden there's a hole in the ground."
Kochanov said like most things, sinkholes can be fixed if they are taken care of right away. If not, they only grow and potentially create more problems.
He said most sinkholes can be fixed with rock, fill, piping and other measures but that each sinkhole must be looked at individually to determine how best to fix it.
"Once you get in there, you see each one is different, and you have to evaluate it as you see it," he said.
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Crack closes Route 33 bridge
Structural damage can be seen on span over Bushkill Creek.
Sunday, January 25, 2004
By NICK FALSONE
The Express-Times
PALMER TWP. -- State police closed a portion of northbound Route 33 Saturday morning after an apparent sinkhole beneath the pillars of a bridge rendered the road unsafe for travel.
The bridge sustained noticeable damage, including a large crack in one of the pillars. No one was injured and no wrecks occurred as a result of the damage.
The closing of the northbound lanes between the highway's interchanges with Routes 248 and 191 will remain in effect through this morning, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials said Saturday afternoon. It could take a while before the lanes reopen, they said.
Travelers heading north on Route 33 dealt with significant delays throughout the day. By early afternoon, traffic had backed up for close to a mile south of the Route 248 interchange.
Cars and tractor-trailers pulled off the interchange at a slow rate only to be greeted by bumper-to-bumper conditions on the two-lane state road. Most appeared to be heading west on the road as per the recommended detour. The detour took them from Route 248 to Route 191 back to Route 33.
The bridge runs over Bushkill Creek at the township's border with Stockertown. Residents living in a neighborhood on the township side said they have petitioned PennDOT for nearly three years about looking into improvements on the bridge.
They said they felt it was a hazard because of the area's vulnerability to sinkholes.
Sinkholes in the area have become so problematic over the years many of the residents joined in forming a neighborhood organization devoted to working with government agencies for solutions.
"We were looking to change some laws and draw attention to this," said Linda Iudicello, a member of the Brookwood Group and a township resident. "These sinkholes have been approaching the bridge and we're concerned about public safety."
PennDOT spokesman Ronald Young said he had no information about the group's efforts, but said the department has been out to the bridge on previous occasions.
"I know our design unit was at some point looking at this bridge, but I'm not sure what they were planning to do," he said.
Young said engineers and contractors spent Saturday surveying the damage, but had not determined what repairs were needed to make the bridge safe for travel. It could be a matter of using concrete to fill the sinkhole underneath the pillar, he said.
"We'll have a better idea (today) after the engineers can look at all the plans," Young said. "It will definitely be closed until at least sometime (today) and possibly longer."
The southbound lanes of Route 33 aren't affected. Separate bridges were built over the creek for each side of the highway. The bridge serving the southbound lanes is not damaged.
In addition to the large crack on the pillar of the bridge, there are also visible signs of damage to the concrete road on the bridge.
The road caves in slightly toward the center of the bridge. Metal bars running along the top of the barriers on both sides of the road are also slightly bent.
By Saturday afternoon, surveyors were examining the bridge from the banks of the Bushkill Creek. A few others looked at documents in cars on the highway's shoulder. Some residents had also walked up to the closed portion of the highway from their nearby homes to get a better look at the damage.
One of the residents, Tony Ramunni, also a member of the Brookwood Group, took pictures with his digital camera.
"I'm just kind of hanging out to find out what I can," Ramunni said.
The bridge has been the source of curiosity and concern for many of the residents. They said its stability seemed questionable long before Saturday morning's discovery.
Carrie Nolan, who recently moved into a home on Babbling Brook Road just yards from the bridge, said she was amazed at the severity of the sinkhole problem in the area. From her backyard, she pointed out several trees that had been uprooted by sinkholes near the bridge.
The noise from the bridge was even more alarming, Nolan said. Every time a truck drives over the bridge, it creates a large "boom" that she hears from her home, Nolan said. After perusing the damage discovered Saturday morning, she said, "They're not going to open this up for a while."
Young said he does not know exactly when the sinkhole damaged the bridge. It could have been a sudden event.
"They can happen fast. It's just a matter of a shift in the geology," he said.
If the problem is serious enough, PennDOT might consider shifting northbound traffic to one of the southbound lanes. It's too early to tell, Young said.
For the time being, the recommendation is to take the detour.
"We appreciate the motorists' patience as we work to get this bridge back to standards," Young said.
