Like many of the details surrounding the Franklin Regional School District’s “elementary campus” project, the discovery of poor soil on the Sardis Road property means one thing to those who support the project, and another to those against it.

To the project’s engineer, the trucking of 12,000 cubic yards of earth off the Sloan site over the next 12 months is “not a significant amount” of material.

To project opponents, it’s confirmation of what many of them have said throughout the development process: that much of the site is not suitable for development.

Murrysville Council last week voted 5-2 to grant approval to a trucking plan to remove 12,000 cubic yards of soil from the Sloan site.

Municipal officials received an email July 29 requesting a land development permit for major excavation, Chief Administrator Jim Morrison said.

“At all times, the school district indicated that it was a valid site, and that all the material moved would stay on the site,” Morrison said. “A second geotechnical report, dated the week after council approved the project, indicated poor soils on the site and that those soils would need to be replaced.”

Project engineer John Frydrych of Civil & Environmental Consultants said information presented with the project’s application was based on seven test borings, part of a June 17, 2017 report that Frydrych said provided “broad-based characterizations of the soils on-site.”

Beginning in January 2018, Frydrych said, an additional 120 borings were drilled throughout the site.

Those tests ultimately indicated areas with poor soil. They were part of subsequent reports dated Oct. 22 and Nov. 8, 2018, less than a month after council’s Oct. 17, 2018 approval.

Project opponents felt the timing of the second report was suspect.

“You had to vote on something and you didn’t have all the information,” Lynn Full of Murrysville told council.

Resident Dick Kearns agreed.

“The final borings were done in January 2018,” he told council. “The final report is dated November 2018. So this information was available. You just didn’t have it.”

Frydrych said it would take roughly 1,000 truck trips to get the 12,000 cubic yards of material off-site, with “most of it occurring during the summer of 2020.”

Material would be taken from Crowfoot Road to Sardis Road and down to Route 22, where it would ultimately be taken to a site in Monroeville. Trucks would be washed before leaving the site in the interest of keeping municipal roads clean, and a bond would be put in place in case of damage to the roads.

“The primary emphasis would be stockpiling of materials on the site, with a mass transport of the material during summer of 2020,” Frydrych said.

The excavated areas would then be filled with suitable material.

Council President Josh Lorenz, an attorney with experience in construction law, said the school district’s request “is not unheard of. In fact, when it comes to soils in particular, there’s probably not a project in Western Pennsylvania that has been commenced in the last three or four years that doesn’t have some sort of soil issue. That’s just the way it is right now.”

Councilman Tony Spadaro, who voted against approving the trucking plan along with fellow Councilman Carl Stepanovich, felt it should be referred back to the Murrysville planning commission.

“There’s been so much confusion and double-talk,” Spadaro said. “I think we should go through the conditional-use process again and do it right.”

Lorenz said the school district did what municipal staff asked when it came to the trucking plan.

“We asked for a plan, which was provided,” he said. “We examined it and came up with an additional set of conditions.”

That did not satisfy Stepanovich.

“I just can’t see not having (the planning commission) provide their input,” he said. “And the way this was (done), last-minute surprise and all that, leaves a real sour taste in my mouth.”

Resident and former council president Joan Kearns agreed.

“You voted on an incomplete package,” she said. “That’s a problem to me.”

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