Cecil Resident, Supervisor Again Ask DEP to Make Worstell Impoundment Meeting Public

Cecil Township resident Rose Churray said when it comes to the Worstell impoundment on Swihart Road, residents need more than answers—they need a dialogue.

Churray, who lives near the impoundment run by Southpointe-based Range Resources, said she is dismayed that the DEP has insisted that an upcoming meeting with township supervisors be held behind closed doors.

She said she was so disappointed in the decision that she called department spokesman John Poister Tuesday to personally ask why there was resistance to making the meeting—to discuss major modifications planned for the impoundment and other issues—public.

Churray said Poister at first indicated he did not know who's decision it was, and then promised to call her back to let her know.

Further disturbing, she said, was a comment Poister made when she asserted that she and other residents have a right to know the information coming out of the meeting.

"He said to me three times, 'You don't have a right to know,'" Churray said Wednesday.

She said the attitude echoed comments made by a retired oil and gas executive in a story that ran in the Post-Gazette just this past weekend.  

She added: "The DEP is supposed to be on our side, here."

Cecil Township supervisors voted in May to request a public meeting with DEP regarding questions about the impoundment, but later was told the gathering would be behind closed doors.

Township Supervisors Andy Schrader on Wednesday said the private meeting between the board and the DEP has been scheduled for Aug. 9 at the department's regional headquarters in Pittsburgh.

And he said that despite a phone call he made to Poister with township Manager Don Gennuso imploring that the meeting be made public, the department declined.

Schrader said he also requested that the board be able to record the meeting so that residents could know what transpired. That request, he said, was also denied.

"We have to go and be a secretary," he said. "What's the point of even having the meeting?"

Asked if he would attend a private meeting with DEP, Schrader said, "I haven't made that decision yet."

But Poister said the decision by DEP to have the meeting behind closed doors was a group one.

And he called the upcoming meeting a "first step."

"Our point is we want to establish a relationship with the supervisors, and this is a good first step," Poister said, and that the private meeting would allow the board and department to work with each other "on a more direct, one-on-one basis."

He said that if a dialogue is successfully established, there could be a public meeting sometime in the future.