Whitehall Township is awaiting a ruling from the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board following two days of testimony on an appeal challenging the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) granting Coplay Aggregates to use regulated fill as a construction material under a permit at its quarry, north of West Coplay Road off Beekmantown Road.

Judge Richard P. Mather Sr. presided at the hearings June 3 and 14, held in the Rachel Carson Building in Harrisburg. The judge’s decision on the township’s appeal was not made immediately following the testimony, which was given over the two days.

Coplay Aggregates is conducting a quarry reclamation project at the former Coplay Cement Company quarry. The principals of Coplay Aggregates, Ciccone and Kolbe families, began the reclamation project with a clean fill permit and were later granted the next level of regulated fill on two locations by DEP.

The majority of the source material had been arriving from the Army Corps of Engineers dredging in the New York and New Jersey waterways, brought about by the opening of the new Panama Canal that is expected to double the amount of freight off-loaded on the East Coast. Both New York and New Jersey Army Corps of Engineers dredging projects are completed. Materials, however, arrive in the township from Allentown, the Lehigh Valley, New Jersey and New York.

The township listed 27 objections in support of its appeal with the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board. The township held that Coplay Aggregates, at a previous subdivision hearing, said it would only use clean fill on the lot.

In a subsequent ruling regarding the appeal process, Mather held there were questions regarding DEP’s decision to consider an approved subdivision plan as an approved “construction plan” under the guidance it considered when it issued the approval.

In the judge’s opinion and order previously on DEP’s and permitted joint partial summary judgment, the judge said there are allegations of several former DEP employees playing a role in the preparation of the request for approval or during the appeal process that constituted improper influence, which DEP and Coplay Aggregates vigorously disputed the township’s assertion of deceit, misrepresentation and improper influence.

Mather, in his March 1, 2017, order, denied the joint motion for partial summary judgment, moving the case to the June hearings.