Completion of the long-delayed Interstate 99 has begun to inch closer.

While building a 1.4-mile I-99 section at Skytop in March 2004, PennDOT unintentionally unearthed a million cubic yards of pyritic rock, prompting environmental concerns and suspending construction. It has cost the department more than $50 million to help prevent the rock from harming the Spring Creek watershed, which includes Penn State.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation resumed work this month on a project to treat acid runoff caused by the construction. When finished, the high-

way will create a quicker route from Centre County to Altoona and western Pennsylvania, though the $700 million highway is not expected to be done until the end of 2008, PennDOT spokeswoman Marla Fannin said.

Cassady Porada (sophomore-engineering) said the construction has become a familiar sight while travelling home to Pittsburgh.

"It's kind of frustrating because I drive it past every time," she said. "It's been two years now, and nothing has changed."

Currently, black plastic covers mounds of the material on each side of Route 220, providing a temporary solution to the major environmental problem.

"I drive up with my parents sometimes too; my dad's in construction and he can't believe they haven't done anything with the rock," Porada said.

The construction of an Engineered Rock Placement Area (ERPA), which encapsulates the rock to control runoff, continued earlier this month. The ERPA was approved for construction in September.

PennDOT is monitoring the site to control runoff as snow begins to melt. Levels of contamination in local groundwater are rising, according to the EPA, and will continue to do so until the remediation process is complete.

Students aren't the only ones impacted by the project. Traffic delays have prevented customers from reaching Skytop Chiropractic in Port Matilda, said Dr. Robert P. Martini, chiropractor at the practice.

As a result, he has lost one-third of his patients, he said.

"They called on their cell phones and said, 'I'm not waiting here any longer,' " he said.

The first year alone, Martini's practice lost $30,000, he said.

"People that don't travel up here think we're gone," Martini said.

PennDOT is considering whether sections of the highway, including the section between Bald Eagle and Port Matilda, can be opened sooner, Fannin said.

"It's still something that we are reviewing and are considering," she said.

However, the Skytop section will remain closed until remediation is "very close to complete," she said.

The Discovery

Commonly know as "fool's gold," pyritic rock is frequently uncovered in Pennsylvania by coal mining, said Rachel Brennan, an associate professor of civil engineering, who studies acid mine reclamation. It becomes an environmental problem when it is unearthed and is exposed to water and oxygen, causing it to dissolve.

"The net result is you get sulfuric acid," she said, adding that this can lead to a number of problems.

The runoff can find its way into groundwater, causing bad taste, a rotten-eggs smell and diuretic problems in people who drink it. Streams can also be affected, causing "yellow boy," where streams are tinged yellow or orange.

Linda Caldwell, office manager of Skytop Chiropractic, said "crystal clear" Buffalo Run has turned orange since the pyrite was uncovered. This color change originally signaled that the contamination had occurred.

Metals such as iron, aluminum and manganese that leech out of the rock kill fish in contaminated streams, Brennan said.

"[The fish] basically suffocate to death," she said.

The state government has put out an initiative to clean up the large number of affected streams in the state, she said. The pyritic rock is not just a problem in Centre County but in the entire state.

Treatment methods vary, but the use of limestone to neutralize pH values is most common, Brennan said.

The accidental uncovering of the rock occurred because its concentration was higher than PennDOT had anticipated, Fannin said.

"What happened was the pyrite turned out to be hotter, for lack of a better word, in concentration than what we anticipated," she said. "When they mixed it with the lime, it did not have the effect we believed it was going to have."

The dirt was then used as "fill in" under other roads, she said.

"It wasn't that we didn't know it was there," Fannin said. "The plan wasn't sufficient in relation to the concentration.

Bill Burgos, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, said the discovery of the pyrite, which is mostly in a single form called the Bald Eagle sandstone, has PennDOT "backed into a difficult situation."

"They basically under-sampled with respect to determining the true sulfur content of that soil," he said. "Months later, they realized they shouldn't have used that stuff for fill."

PennDOT was left with 1 million cubic yards of pyrite-laced material to deal with, and 70 percent will be moved -- in 40,000 truckloads -- to an engineered disposal site, Fannin said.

Once the pyrite was discovered, PennDOT halted construction in the area to address the environmental problem at hand.

The vast majority of the pyritic rock sits in Buffalo Run and Waddle Creek watersheds, each designated by the EPA as a "high-quality cold water fishery." Federal and state law requires that if possible, discharge be avoided in this designation. Experts agreed that the rock could not be treated in this location to meet the standard.

"Where it stood, it was going to generate pollution in an uncontrolled manner," Burgos said.

PennDOT was faced with finding a suitable place for a treatment facility.

Finding a Solution

A controversial plan proposed in February 2006 to move it to a site in Indiana County faced overwhelming opposition.

"At the time that we thought we were going to go Indiana County, we believed that the site we had at Indiana county was an excellent site for this type of material," Fannin said.

A company in the area was interested in using the material, she said, but ultimately, the plan was shelved.

"To truck the material that far was just not in the interest of the majority and that if we had a site that was acceptable and was closer, that was certainly an option to us," Fannin said. "We chose ultimately not to truck that far."

In September, the DEP approved a revised PennDOT plan to construct the ERPA along I-99 near Skytop.

"It will be built very similar to a state-of-the-art landfill," Fannin said.

This site is in the watershed of Bald Eagle Creek, which has a lower quality with the EPA than Buffalo Run and Waddle Creek.

The ERPA is considered a permanent, secure way to dispose of the pyritic rock. The rock is mixed with lime and compacted before it is placed. Several liners will encapsulate the rock to prevent contamination of ground or surface waters, and the ERPA will be covered in soil and planted with trees and shrubs.

"Once the ERPA is built, we will continue to test and monitor groundwater, residential wells and surface water," Fannin said. "We are required to do that for an indefinite period of time -- probably for years after the remediation is in place."

The remaining 300,000 cubic yards of material at Skytop, which includes fill areas and open rock cut faces, is "politically and physically" immovable due to expense, Burgos said.

In those areas, permanent, multi-layer covers made of synthetic material will be installed to prevent contamination, Fannin said. Areas covered by this material will be monitored closely by PennDOT for abnormal sulfate levels, she said.

Randy Farmerie, Department of Environmental Protection hydrogeologist, reviews the data collected by PennDOT. The DEP has been regularly monitoring about 140 wells located within about a mile of the site, he said.

About 12 wells have increasing toxicity levels due to the immovable pyrite, he said. However, none of the results are yet "above standard," he said.

"What we've seen over those two years or so, almost three years, was a slow upward trend," Farmerie said. "It continues to go upward."

Though remediation by PennDOT is scheduled to be complete in the next year and a half, downward trends will most likely not be seen for a couple of years, Farmerie said.

"The results will have to tell us whether that's what happens or not," Farmerie said. "It won't be instantaneous. It's been a couple years that those things have been exposed. It's only now that we're seeing the trend develop."

PennDOT provided bottled water to half a dozen homes because of sulfate levels that are above the DEP regulation, Fannin said. The homes will continue to receive the bottled water.

Bob Donaldson, who sits on a community advisory committee to PennDOT, said the final remediation solution was the best available that had "proven technology behind it."

"I'm sure if you could take ten scientists, they could all come up and say there's a better way to do it," Donaldson said.

Donaldson is also on the board of directors of ClearWater Conservancy, a local conservation group.

"ClearWater Conservancy has as one of its primary objectives to make sure that the high quality water we have in Central Pa. remains high quality," Donaldson said.

PennDOT has done an "adequate job" of protecting local streams, he said.

"As long as they were doing the best they could to preclude any further interim pollution and we were working to a final solution, that was about all we could ask them to do," Donaldson said. "They were frustrated themselves. I thought they were doing about as good a job as they could do."

The state of Pennsylvania has a "perpetual responsibility" to protect the streams from the drainage, Donaldson said.

When the road is completed, Martini said he expects the increased exposure and growth in population to help his business.

But for the time being, he just has to wait for the construction to finish.

"I was fully prepared to take the hit for a couple of years, but seven, eight years has been tough to swallow," he said.