UNITY TOWNSHIP, Pa. — For the last eight years, Unity Township has been keeping an eye on a massive sinkhole just off Route 30 East near Fred Rogers Drive.
“It needs fixed, and it needs fixed quickly,” said Michael O’Barto, Unity Township Supervisor. “It was actually brought to our attention by the Rogers family. The Mr. Rogers family.”
Through inspection, the township found a collapsed connector in a nearly 80-year-old culvert that caused the sinkhole.
The township didn’t feel it should solely be on the hook for the full cost of repairs.
So they teamed up with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which holds the property, and PennDOT. The conservancy spearheaded an effort to get money from the state and was able to land a $300,000 grant through the Commonwealth Financing Authority’s Watershed Restoration Protection Program.
“It is so important to be able to work with our state agencies as well as any other entity out there because there’s only so much money to actually spend on projects that you probably would never, ever budget,” O’Barto told Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek.
Despite that grant, the township says they will need to come up with more money.
“The cost to repair it is well over half a million dollars,” O’Barto said. “So we still have to come up with some more money, but this gives us the ability to do engineering and see how much the projects actually going to cost.”
In the past year, the township says there hasn’t been much erosion, but they want to fix it so more of the land doesn’t wash away, especially since it’s just a few yards away from Route 30 East.
The township doesn’t believe there is any threat to the highway at this time.
“We don’t want it to erode any further and create more of a cost if it would actually go under Route 30,” O’Barto said.
O’Barto said he hopes once work does start on fixing this sinkhole, it’ll take about a year to complete.
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