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A mall in Harmar would obliterate what's called one of the county's 'best' wetlands
Sunday, November 14, 1999 By Don Hopey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
About seven acres of the best marshland in Allegheny County and a half-mile of the pretty little stream that runs through the middle of it could soon be buried beneath 8.5 million cubic yards of fill, a highway interchange and a shopping-office-entertainment plaza.
And the final decision on the $200 million project in Harmar may have as much to do with political coattails as it does with the value of cattails.
The proposed project, Deer Creek Crossing, would be built on 200 acres of a 300-acre parcel owned by Pittsburgh businessman W. Duff McCrady, in a pie-shaped, bottom-land parcel bounded by the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Route 28 and 910.
A state Fish and Boat Commission biologist has harshly criticized the environmental damage that would be caused by the project.
In response, the developer, Woodmont Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas, has met with state and federal agency heads and politicians in an attempt to gather support and speed approval of the project.
In a Sept. 20 letter to state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary James Seif, Joseph S. Howell III, Woodmont development partner, recounted his meetings with Seif, the heads of the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the staffs of Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Swissvale, and Republican Sens. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and "an old friend of ours from Texas," Kay Bailey Hutchison.
The purpose of the meetings with the agency heads, Howell writes, is "so they are not placed in a position of having to later defend a field biologist's myopic project assessment."
Howell also writes in his letter to Seif, "If you feel it would be helpful to get any state legislators involved, [i.e., ones that would have any specific influence with the Fish and Boat Commission], please let me know."
Seif did not get back to Howell with the names of influential legislators, said April Hutcheson, a DEP spokeswoman, adding, "He did not, and he does not, do that type of thing."
Hutcheson said it was "not out of the ordinary" for Seif to meet with developers, but emphasized that the decision on the wetland development permit will be made by DEP's southwest regional office based on the technical review of the project.
"There is no decision yet," Hutcheson said. "When it is made, the secretary won't be influencing it."
Howell, in a phone conversation last week, defended the commercial development as "environmentally sensitive," and said the meetings with politicians and agency heads were not an attempt to influence a decision on the project.
"We're in there trying to make as many people aware of it as we can, and expedite the process," Howell said. "The political process is supposed to be an open one. We've never seen as much bipartisan support as this project has."
One person not supporting the project is Fish Commission biologist Ron Tibbott, who characterized it as "a ludicrous environmental disgrace the likes of which have never been permitted" in Pennsylvania.
The mall project's footprint would stomp on about seven of the 10 acres of wetlands on the parcel. The area was identified as the "best examples of flood plain forest and healthy marsh in the county" by a 1994 Natural Heritage Inventory done by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Much of the timber was cut a week after a story on the inventory ran in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in April 1994, but the valuable wetlands remain.
An August report by the Fish and Boat Commission said the "riparian system provides a literal oasis of aquatic habitat."
The project proposal would reroute 2,700 feet of creek that contain 21 species of fish. The count includes trout from upstream stocked sections of Deer Creek, as well as smallmouth bass, sauger, bluegill and carp migrating up from the Allegheny River.
A hike along the creek last week found it bordered by 50-foot-high shale cliffs, shaded by arching sycamores, willows and hemlock, and home to deer, turkey and beaver.
The developer proposes rerouting the creek along the edge of the property, making it longer but with almost no slope, so there would be little water movement to cool and oxygenate the creek for fish. "The oasis will be crammed into a corner of the property between Route 28 and the turnpike," Tibbott said. "The channel is a parody of a creek. It will convey water, but it won't hold fish."
Also in the developer's plan are 10 acres of constructed wetlands at the edges of parking lots and along storm sewer lines. Tibbott says they will be little more than storm water basins.
According to a suggestion that came from Howell's meeting with Seif, the constructed wetlands and three acres of high quality wetlands that would not be affected by the project will be called the "Rachel Carson Wetland" and offered to Chatham College as an "outdoor laboratory." McCrady, the owner of the property, is on the Chatham board of trustees.
Not surprisingly, the mall proposal has lined up support from entities that would benefit from the taxes it would generate: the county commissioners, Harmar Township, the local school district and the Allegheny Valley Industrial Development Corporation.
Howell and McCrady say the economic and social benefits -- $4 million in annual tax revenues, 3,000 permanent jobs, a safer highway interchange where Route 910 meets Route 28 -- far outweigh any disputed environmental costs.
"You can't compare the value of a fish to a human life that might be saved by the road improvements," Howell said.
But the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation does not list the Route 910 interchange as a high-priority problem area for traffic or safety.
The state's review and public comment period ended last month. The comment period for the permit by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has final say on the project, ends in a little more than a week, on Nov. 23.
Donald Orlowski, executive director of the Tri-County Trout Club, said his organization will file comments opposing the project because of its impact on Deer Creek, one of just three streams in Allegheny County with good enough water quality to support trout.
"If the mall is built, the impact on fish and other aquatic life living in this section of the creek would be devastating," Orlowski wrote. "It would ... decimate wildlife -- green herons, turkey, deer, beaver, fox, owls, geese and ducks -- that live in the area."
Davitt Woodwell, regional director of the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, said, "Given the Corps' record, this permit is an opportunity for the Corps to really show it's serious about enforcing the Clean Water Act and its commitment to protecting wetlands."
Tibbott said he told the developer last January the proposal had no chance.
"I've never seen a permit like this approved in my 23 years of doing this job," he said. "But the developer seems to have the money and influence. Now, I wouldn't bet against it."
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