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DEPs mine fire bids under scrutiny
Monday, July 26, 1999 By Mike Bucsko, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Two years ago, a Peters environmental contractor lined up with similar companies to bid on a project to smother an underground mine fire in Fayette County.
That time, Pennsylvania Earth Tech Inc. was the successful bidder. The company last year drilled dozens of holes and poured a concrete-type substance into them to create a wall that would block the fire from spreading.
The job did not stop the fire from burning in the mine beneath the Youngstown section of North Union. The underground mine fire began in the 1970s and has been burning off and on since then, despite two previous efforts to extinguish it in the past 15 years.
Now the state Department of Environmental Protection is ready to issue another contract to stop the fire.
But this time there will be no bids. Instead, the state is ready to award a contract worth at least $2.2 million to Duquesne Light Co. so the company can use a byproduct from its coal-burning power plant to try and stop the Youngstown mine fire.
Cleon Godard, vice-president of Pennsylvania Earth Tech, is not pleased.
Godard recently sent a letter to state officials in which he objected to the impending Duquesne Light contract because it is not being bid and because Duquesne Light plans to hire a subcontractor to do the drilling and other major work.
While acknowledging he has "sour grapes" because his company did not get the job, Godard said he does not understand why Pennsylvania Earth Tech did not get the chance to submit a bid.
"This thing should go out to bid," Godard said. "It's [being funded by] public funds and I think it's being spent inappropriately."
Not so, said Bill Calder, procurement attorney for the Department of Environmental Protection.
Under most circumstances, the state is required to solicit bids for any project over $10,000. But under a new law that took effect last year, exceptions can be made in certain cases, Calder said.
The exception the state used in Duquesne Light's case allows a single contractor to be awarded a contract if it is the only firm that can provide a particular item necessary for a job, Calder said.
In this case, Duquesne Light has the byproduct from its generating plant, called low-permeability cementitious, or LPC, which will be pumped into holes drilled into the underground mine, Calder said.
One of the reasons Duquesne Light was selected for the latest battle with the Youngstown mine fire is because in previous instances of underground fires several contractors worked to extinguish a fire and had a tendency to blame each other when the work failed, Calder said.
This time, Duquesne Light will be solely responsible for the outcome, said Darlene Crawford, a DEP spokeswoman in Harrisburg.
"My understanding is that they've tried a lot of patchwork things over time to try and stop the fire from spreading," Crawford said. "I think what they're looking for is to extinguish the fire at a reasonable cost. That's the hope anyway."
This is the first time Duquesne Light has used the LPC on an underground mine fire, spokesman Barry Kukovich said.
Even if Duquesne Light is the only company that can supply the LPC, Godard said, the state should have bid the drilling and pumping, the major work that Duquesne Light has subcontracted. The utility company plans to hire Howard Concrete Pumping of Cuddy to do that work.
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