The Altoona Water Authority has been working on a plan to transport 30,000 cubic yards of silt from Gamelands 158 in Reade Township to a site next to the Bellwood Reservoir, from whose basin the silt was transported to the gamelands in the early stages of the authority’s recently completed renovation of Bellwood Dam.

The gamelands was the site to which the authority got permission from the Cambria County Conservation District to take the silt from the reservoir basin for disposal — permission which was revoked by DEP after the Reade Township Municipal Authority objected to the silt’s presence, out of concern that it would contaminate an authority wellfield, on whose recharge area it was deposited.

Having previously tested the silt for contaminants, the authority tried to regain permission to deposit the rest of the silt on the gamelands, but failed, and eventually found and obtained approval for a site next to the reservoir, where workers placed the remainder excavated from the basin.

The authority was unable to convince DEP to let what it initially took to the gamelands to remain there.

The silt was “sampled forward and backward,” said authority general manager Mark Perry. “In my opinion, it’s a complete injustice,” Perry said.

The silt was washed down into the reservoir in the first place from ground that included the gamelands, he has said.

Transporting the silt that is now on the gamelands in piles over a few acres down the mountain to the disposal site near the reservoir will take two or three months, estimated Mike Bianconi, the authority’s director of water operations.

It will be a joint project between authority workers and a contractor, Perry said.

If the authority did all the work in-house, it would occupy authority workers all summer, Perry said.

The silt represents about 15% of the total amount eventually taken from the basin, Bianconi said.

There are about 2,000 triaxle dumptruck loads on the gamelands, Bianconi estimated.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.