The many families on the “Hill”…
Just by memory panning from where we lived at our house in the Benshoff Hill/Valley View section of southern Middle Taylor Township, now Taft Street, these were the names of the many families that lived there during the time of my generation and which I grew up with. The list is separated into the following categories in alphabetical order and by last name only: immediate family, other family, close friends, friends, and other neighbors. (Note: Forgive me if I did not spell names correctly or if I missed somebody.)
Immediate family: Allison, Babela, Dudak, Furman, Rokita, Thomas, and Zahoran
Other family: Berg, Bretz, Chuha, Hill, Elias, Holko, Stavas, and Tomak
Close friends: Balog, Boring, Bush, Burnheimer, Carney, Havrilla, Herbert, Hughes, Metzgar, Murgas, Owens, Rhodes, Spinelli, and Urbassik
Friends: Allison, Alvarez, Blue, Burkett, Cvrkel, Day, Kowaleski, Livella, Lepus, Major, Micik, McKendree, Roberts, Rhodes (cemetery), Rummel, Tutokey, and Waterhouse
Other neighbors: Alt, Bailey, Bantley, Boast, Brehm, Cameron, Cernak, Cosgrove, Covalt, Cummings, Decker, Edminston, Forgas, Frieben, Fuska, Gagan, Golian, Gorman, Harrison, Hodos, Hoyland, Jurasa, Kasisky, Lautenbaucher, Lewis, Lehman, Mackel, Matolyak, Melikant, Miske, Morlatko, Moschat, Muchesko, Oaks, Orlosky, Polacek, Pudliner, Rager, Russell, Saintz, Sarosi, Sestrich, Shawley, Sestrich, Speicher, Stepian, Strashensky, Teeter, Trexler, Vanfossen, Voytas, Webb, Wojcik and Zonin.
General demographics of Middle Taylor Township as of July 1, 2018. According to year 2010 United States census data, the total population of the township was 727 people.
This is a telling aerial image (USGS 1977). You can see the Conemaugh River and the 4th Avenue Bridge in the Cambria City, Minersville section of the City of Johnstown in the lower (southwest) corner. Just to the right (northeast) you can see the Bethlehem Steel Corporation (BSC) Rosedale coke plant situated along the meandering Hinckston Run stream. If you look real, real close you can actually see in the image what I believe is a plume of smoke coming from the former smokestack at the coke plant. It is the white cloud in a J-hook arrangement and is probably a rising plume which then makes a hard left turn once it hits prevailing winds at a higher elevation. This plume is right over our house where we used to live in the Benshoff Hill/Valley View section of southern Middle Taylor Township.
This is another great historical aerial image, appears to be from airplane (source and date unknown). You can see in the middle left (west) of the picture where the smoke is pouring out heavily the Johnstown Plant Bethlehem Steel in operation in Cambria City. You can see the Johnstown train station and the bridge over the Little Conemaugh River at the base of Prospect Hill. The point of interest I would like to make is the other plant smoking away in the background beyond (north of) the large plant. This is the Rosedale coke plant. It is around the hill in the next valley which would be Hinckston Run.
This is an example of the smoke and steam plume which rose most all of the time as I remember from the Bethlehem Steel Corporation (BSC) Rosedale coke plant situated along Honan Avenue and the Hinckston Run stream. The Benshoff Hill/Valley View section of south Middle Taylor Township is the right just beyond the plant layout. (source and date unknown)
This is a great picture of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation (BSC) Rosedale coke plant situated along Honan Avenue and the Hinckston Run stream. The Benshoff Hill/Valley View section of south Middle Taylor Township is in back (north) of the plant. Note that there are no trees whatsover on the hills above the plant. (source and date unknown)
As a young engineer (Part 1)…
During my civil engineering studies at UPJ, I was able to secure a summer internship for two years with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (PA DER), Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation office in Ebensburg. I was able to shadow and be mentored by engineers and technicians who worked in this office and did work in the Western Bituminous coal region from Ebensburg west to the Pittsburgh area. During this internship, I was able to view various types of coal-mine related conditions which were polluting the state’s waterways, groundwater, and environment as well as remediation measures being used to control and rectify these pollution sources, or at least to try to offset their impacts. Some of the projects that I viewed and was involved with included abandoned surface mines, drilling/flushing to control mine subsidence, drilling of monitoring wells, mine and refuse pile fires, mine shaft reseals, and exploratory drilling programs. One vivid memory I have from working there was of a mine subsidence problem in a suburb of Pittsburgh where the entire house collapsed. The driveway led straight to the roof of the sunken house.
Upon graduating from UPJ in spring of 1988 with a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering technology, it was not easy to find a job locally in the STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) sector. Because of the decline of the coal mining and steel mill industries, the local area was transitioning from a blue collar steel mill and coal mining region to something else. It seemed as though the medical and health industry was starting to take root. At that time, there was not much opportunity for a young civil engineer to land a job in the Greater Johnstown area - unless you were lucky and landed a job as a teacher with a local school district or with a state government agency (like the PA DER or PennDOT). However, I ended up being pretty lucky. I was able to immediately find a job with a local consulting engineering firm. This was with the Earth Science division at L. Robert Kimball & Associates in Ebensburg PA.
At L. Robert Kimball & Associates, we did civil, environmental and geotechnical consulting engineering and permit type work for many mining companies in both Pennsylvania and West Virginia. However, again that was right about the time that the coal mining industry was starting to downturn (late 1980’s and early 1990’s). Our division of the firm then switched focus and began doing other types of projects including municipal work, site design work for many of the newer commercial developments in the area, landfills, and infrastructure design work for various coal-fired power generating facilities in the area, including work to design fly ash landfill sites. I specifically was on the team which did design work for the fly ash landfill at the Shawville Generating Station (Penelec) in Clearfield County and offsite utility design for many of the newer co-generation power plant facilities that were cropping up in the area including two in Ebensburg, one in Colver, one near Clarion, and one in far north Franklin County. This included work to obtain permits and design and construction of various supporting facilities such as access roads, raw water pipelines, wastewater discharge (operational) pipelines, public water and sewer connections, drainage facilities, erosion and sediment control measures, stormwater management practices, and even power transmission line layout and right-of-way acquisitions.
One interesting piece of experience I gained, which will come into play later in the research timeline, was work to design, obtain permits, prepare plans and specifications, and provide construction services for drinking water water supply systems - both public and private. I became trained in this area and obtained good experience on several projects. One thing I learned for water supply system work was that it was very expensive to design, permit, obtain right-of-way, and construct municipal public drinking water systems. Even if there was already a water treatment plant present and the project was just a simple distribution system extension, there was still much expense to plan, design, construct, operate and maintain such a system. Often times an extension project involved large diameter trunk (main) lines then smaller diameter feeder and service lines. In addition, most times above ground water tanks or booster pump stations were needed. Water from the main system was normally pumped to a storage tank at night during off-peak hours, then that tank would feed the customers by gravity service during peak hours of the day like in mornings before work and school and evenings afterward.
One project I recall in particular was situated somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania around the early 1990’s. There was a large plume of contamination within the groundwater of a residential area. Some kind of industry pollution or spill caused the contamination. The residences in the vicinity of the contamination plume had individual on-lot wells as their primary drinking water supply source. The contamination plume had affected the wells and it was harmful to drink the water. A study was done to look at the extent of the plume and come up with feasible alternatives and costs to remediate contaminated soils and groundwater or provide a suitable replacement public water source. The final alternative selected was to extend a nearby municipal public water system to this affected community in order to eliminate hazards associated with the public’s contact with the contamination.
This was done at great expense and cost but seemed to serve the purpose. Some may say this alternative just masked the problem or kicked the can down the road. I don’t know if those residents were even made aware of the problem that existed beneath their land. Maybe they were just happy to be connected to a new municipal water service system that was safer, more reliable, and probably increased the value of their homes and property considerably.