Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Part III

Silt: What is it, and Why do we care?

A three-part series

Preface

Hello, Fellow Friends of Robinson Park!

A major part of our mission is to educate neighbors and interested parties on subject matter that is of specific concern to Robinson Park and the proposed “Wetland Enhancement Project.”  We are committed to providing you with independent, expert third-party guidance from reputable sources, and we share these resources along with our interpretation to support your self-education in determining how these matters will impact your lifestyle, property values, children, and pets as you enjoy the Park.

We hope that you will feel free to forward this message, and all of our correspondence, to your friends and neighbors who may similarly benefit from this information and invite them to join our mailing list.

This is Part 2 of 3; to read the other articles, please use the links below.  In this episode, we’re going to talk about silt, and we’ve selected AC/DC’s 1976 hit, “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” as the theme song to underscore this series.

Part III: Dirty Deeds may be Done Dirt Cheap in the short term… but they become quite costly long-term

While we have been led to view this as a stormwater control issue, the Staff’s response to our list of questions (found here) and Robinson Park’s inclusion in their Pollution Control Plan as presented in 2022 (on page 13 of the document found here) made it clear that the Township views this project as pollution control.  Pollution will be carried to the Park via water – however, some of the water may dissipate, but by Gannett Fleming’s design, most of the pollutants will remain with no commitment for maintenance and remediation.  So, in essence, Robinson Park becomes a dumping site as a band-aid to appease the Township’s MS4 requirements as imposed by the DEP and EPA.  To be blunt, and to reiterate from our previous article, there is no mitigation plan for the swamp conditions and pollutants at this point because the Park becoming a dumping site *is* the mitigation plan.

As we noted in our presentation on June 10 (click to watch the recording), there are two separate projects with stormwater management implications that are currently being undertaken.  One of them is the Church Road / Greenwood Avenue project, and the other is the Robinson Park Wetland Enhancement Project.

The Church Road / Greenwood Avenue project is being undertaken and funded by PADOT, who has agreed to mitigate the silt in the basin that they are building on Greenwood Ave on a six-month rotation, whereas the Robinson Park Wetland Enhancement Project, an independent Township endeavor with its own separate set of grants, funding, and oversights, includes no mitigation plans whatsoever.  In fact, Gannett Fleming (the Township’s hired consultants responsible for the design) asserts that no mitigation will be needed, and the Township has indicated that they are aligned in their thinking.  In light of the research that we’ve presented thus far, we feel that this is short-sighted.

Given the issues we’ve raised in our previous two articles, along with the fact that the Park has been left to decay for upwards of two years with what little vegetation that existed having been laid to waste in recent months (aside from the phragmites, which warrant their own separate article – more coming soon!), we have every confidence that, if the Staff’s proposed path forward as represented by Gannett Fleming’s design should succeed, the Township will relinquish any and all responsibility to maintain the Park as a public resource and will instead leave it to continue to deteriorate.

At this point, we do want to make it clear that Commissioners Rappoport and Chirico have spent time with us in the Park listening to our concerns and issues.  We felt that this meeting was mutually beneficial, as Ms. Rappoport has indicated that she is developing her own list of questions for Staff and Gannett Fleming. We are hopeful that our Commissioners will continue to partner with us as they work to represent the interests of their constituents as balanced with the needs of the Township.

In Conclusion:
“Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” put us on the “Highway to Hell”
(our personal epithet for Greenwood Avenue)

(Amid the seriousness of these issues, we hope that our AC/DC references have provided a little bit of levity.)

The question then becomes, what will Robinson Park look like in the future if this silt is allowed to be accretive without remediation?  It does not take a lot of imagination, as the initial concept design presented by the Township on June 11 includes minimal intention to retain Robinson Park as the refuge, respite, and recreational site for public enjoyment that it has been since its acquisition in 1996.  Furthermore, and perhaps more concerningly, at some point, the pollutants will need to be measured, tracked, and ultimately removed as toxic waste.

Your children and loved ones may be sickened from poisonous residues that stick to your clothing and are transferred, unseen, into your homes.  We will no longer be able to walk our dogs there because we will experience an infestation of ticks, which will be left to run rampant as the deer continue to take a foothold in our ecosystem, and our pets may be poisoned by the toxins as they lick their feet.

We will no longer have a large, wide-open space to enjoy for recreation without having to cross major roadways (specifically Church Road and Greenwood Avenue) – which the Township has acknowledged already experience an intractable speeding problem and which has no crosswalks or signals, except at the intersections of other major roadways.

The organic mission of the Community Garden will be altogether defeated.

As Staff explains (Question 3 in the doc found here), “the Township is obligated to meet Federal and State requirements for water pollution reduction. … Robinson Park is uniquely suited as a remediation-valued site in the Township’s overall MS4 commitments.  That alone makes it both a necessary and advisable investment for our grants and taxpayers’ resources.”  This statement by hired Staff is completely tone-deaf and dismissive of the community’s utilization of the Park.

With this in mind, we feel that, should the plan be approved without concrete resolutions from Township Staff to protect the primary usage and function of the Park, the Wyncote Historic District will lose one of its most beloved public respites, and we will be left to suffer the ongoing, long-term consequences once other problems inevitably arise. 

This is just the beginning.

We’re here to help.

This is why the Friends of Robinson Park was formed, and we are committed to our mission to provide you with independent, third-party expert guidance and reputable resources to support your self-education.  If you have any questions about the information that we’ve shared, if you have any topics that you would like to see us cover in future articles, or if you have any other bands that you would like to see us quote (is Chappell Roan too trendy?), please do not hesitate to reach out.  We are glad to provide whatever resources you need, and we are grateful to have you on this journey with us.