At the July 10 meeting of Coplay Borough Council, Councilmen Stephen Burker and Charles Sodl updated council on a July 9 meeting in Wind Gap about the levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, PCB, recently found in the Coplay Aggregates quarry.

“The three-hour session was informative,” Sodl said. “We heard a lot from people that live near the quarry and the impact these problems have on their lives.”

The quarry is located at 5001 W. Coplay Road, Whitehall Township.

Local property owners voiced their concerns over well water that might now be questionable to drink. A local, family-owned fish hatchery in operation for more than 60 years reportedly has had fish die in large numbers. Burker opined that trucks banned from dumping in New York and New Jersey are now coming to Pennsylvania to dump in the quarries.

“These trucks are coming in here and dumping in the early-morning hours or dumping on the weekends when they don’t think they will get caught,” Burker alleged.

Whitehall Township officials found out about the contaminated fill June 5 when, after a meeting between Coplay Aggregates officials and township Mayor Michael Harakal Jr., the township executive secretary received an email from the federal Environmental Protection Agency indicating a violation, township Commissioner Joseph Marx Jr. told his colleagues during a recent meeting of the Whitehall Township Board of Commissioners.

Marx said the notice was not mentioned during the meeting between the company officials and Harakal, even though Coplay Aggregates was reportedly notified of its noncompliance March 13 after samples taken from the quarry contained high levels of PCBs.

“All we know is federal limits of PCB levels should not exceed 2 parts per million,” Marx said. “But the samples from Coplay Aggregates measured 6.75 parts per million.”

According to the EPA, PCBs belong to a family of man-made organic chemicals that were manufactured and used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications from 1929 until being banned in 1979. PCBs do not readily break down once in the environment and have been found in water in areas far from where they were released. PCBs have been shown to cause a variety of adverse health effects and are potentially carcinogenic.

State Rep. Jeanne McNeill, D-133rd; state Rep. Zach Mako, R-183rd; and state Sen. Mario Scavello, R-40th, attended the session in Wind Gap. The conference group asked for a tour of the quarry. The request is under consideration. The borough will continue to follow this matter and will update borough residents, Burker said.

In other action, Burker is asking for more lifeguards at the borough’s Parkway Pool.

“We lost a few lifeguards, and we need at least two more to keep the pool operating on a normal schedule. Three would be better,” he said.

Interested certified lifeguards should contact Tiffany Marie at 717-809-6789.

In a related matter, the borough purchased a new security system for the pool. The new camera covers the entire pool area and provides much clearer photos. The system is also helpful to lifeguards.