Officials: Forest Hills Not Trashing Clean Fill Site

Forest Hills is not dumping trash at a clean fill site near the Westinghouse Recreation Center—but someone is—officials said at borough council's Wednesday meeting.

Complaints that the borough is using the site improperly surfaced in the community after resident Deborah Jugan provided WTAE with video footage of a deer near the site that appears to have a shipping cable wrapped around its body. Additional photos Jugan provided Patch show piping and various trash strewn about the ground. 

The site is designated as a conservation area, but council previously approved an ordinance allowing clean fill to be dumped into a 30-foot ravine as part of an ongoing effort to expand baseball fields nearby.

“The fact of the matter is ... the area in question is a ravine that was unusable and dangerous,” Mayor Marty O’Malley said of criticism of the decision to dump clean fill there.

Trash is getting back there, council president Frank Porco said, but not because of borough policy.

“Our council had decided to use that area for the dumping of clean fill, and it was only to be used by the department of public works and whatever contractor was awarded the sewer break fix contract in our borough,” Porco said.

The borough saves between $50,000 and $60,000 a year by having the clean fill site, as it reduces driving distance for both public works and contractors, according to Porco.

When a resident asked how council determines what is clean fill, council member Steve Karas said they adopted state Department of Environmental Protection definitions when passing the ordinance.

The question now, Porco said, is how to keep the area clean.

“Is there trash getting back there? Apparently,” Porco said. “I’m going to suggest some policies that I think will help us out a tighter control over who has access to it.”

The clean fill site is gated and is supposed to be locked. But Porco said he has walked by the site on weekends and has seen the lock and chain laying on the ground—suggesting that unauthorized people have gained access.

He proposed that council change the lock, select one person, and issue him or her a key that would require a signature in order to be duplicated. He also suggested scheduled visits to the site to check for trash.

“That is not a dumping ground,” Porco said. “Nor is it to be used as a dumping ground—not by the borough and not by any of its residents.”