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Friday, June 07, 2002

A construction trailer was the last place Audra Zampogna expected to visit at 2:30 a.m. in mid-April.

	Audra Zampogna says noise from late-night construction work on the $25 million Cargo Road intersection project along Route 60 has kept her family from sleeping. (John Beale, Post-Gazette)

But the sounds of heavy equipment growling and beeping outside the modest two-story frame home in Moon that she shares with her husband, Mike, and their six children were unbearable.

"No one could sleep," she said. "The kids had school the next day and Mike had to go to work. But everyone was awake.

"We know the work [for the $25 million Cargo Road intersection project along Route 60] has to be done, but why couldn't they do it near our house during the day?"

She said the guy who answered the door at the trailer along Moon-Clinton Road pretended he didn't know what she was talking about.

What equipment, he asked. What noise?

When Zampogna pointedly told him he knew exactly what was going on near her home, he said the work would stop at 3 a.m. because that's when the shift ended.

Zampogna, 41, asked how long the late night work would continue.

She didn't like the answer.

"He said it was going to be happening more and more often," she said.

Zampogna's next stop was the Moon police station, where she found sympathy but little else.

"They told me they couldn't do anything because it is a state project," she said.

Although the township noise ordinance prohibits the operation of heavy equipment from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., she said a police officer told her -- incorrectly -- that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation doesn't have to obey such restrictions. It does, but it does receive waivers.

She went to the Moon Municipal Building the next day and spoke to Dave Meinert, the township's zoning officer, building inspector and code administrator.

Meinert told her he would relay her compliant to everyone concerned.

Unfortunately, things got worse.

The Zampognas came home at various times during the day and early evening to find trucks and equipment in their driveway, blocking their driveway, blocking their mailbox and blocking the two-lane road in front of the house. In addition to not being able to use their driveway and road, they didn't receive any mail or recyclable service until the vehicles were removed.

Zampogna said she complained bitterly to the "truck sitter," a man who sat behind the wheel of a truck for hours at a time near the house. He was less than helpful, she said.

"He was so rude," she said.

Robert Spotsky, a neighbor up the road, didn't fare much better. Ten of his tall evergreens were to be cut as part of the intersection work, but 16 were leveled. Spotsky was upset, and so were the Zampognas.

"Those trees served as a sight and sound buffer between Route 60 and our home," Zampogna said. "I was very upset when they were cut, especially when I found out they cut down more than they should have."

Then she came home one day and found that someone had cut the lower branches from two towering evergreens in front of her house. The limbs were removed up to a height of about 30 feet. There appeared to be no reason to cut them. The electric lines are across the street.

"It was a terrible thing to do," she said. "Now, when we sit on the front porch or in the yard, we see the road instead of two full evergreen trees."

Who did it? No one seems to know.

I made a series of calls to determine what might be done to put a stop to late night work near the Zampogna home and to prevent any further tree-trimming.

It's already being done, said John Villella, project manager for PennDOT.

He said Trumbull Corp., the general contractor for the intersection work, has agreed not to do any more late night/early morning work near the family's house unless it cannot be done at any other time.

The Moon Township Municipal Authority, which also has been working at night near the Zampogna house, said it also would try to limit its work to daytime hours.

Zampogna was skeptical.

"That's what I was told when I complained the first time," she said.

I told her everyone involved in the intersection and municipal authority projects had assured me they would keep things as quiet as possible near the house.

But not today.

Trumbull has notified her it will be blasting in the area to remove a seam of limestone so it can keep the intersection project on schedule.

"I'm glad they told us," she said. "I wish they would have notified us before they started the night work back in April. The sooner this work gets done the better. We miss the peace and quiet we used to have."

Lawrence Walsh can be reached at 412-263-1895. His e-mail address is lwalsh@post-gazette.com.