Gas drilling windfall will help repair roads in Fawn

An unexpected windfall from the state’s Act 13 program will enable Fawn to handle emergency repairs on two township roads.

Fawn received $104,000 this year in Act 13 money derived from natural gas drilling royalties. That’s $21,000 more than last year.

The extra money will enable Fawn to repair Sun Mine Road, which has been reduced to one lane since a landslide earlier this year, and improve drainage on Thompson Road, a portion of which is closed.

Supervisors on Tuesday night unanimously approved a resolution declaring an emergency situation of “embankment failure” to bypass the bidding process and assign up to $65,000 to Dura Hold of Bull Creek Road. The company will supply tie-back retaining wall materials similar to what was used in the Bakerstown Road collapse in 2017 near the Route 28 expressway.

The new retaining walls are expected to include improved drainage for the areas.

Workers will have to dig through about 12 feet of clay in the area to reach shale.

“I’m confident it will be a good, solid (retaining) wall,” said supervisors Chairman Dave Montanari. “Sun Mine will be in the condition it needs to be.”

Township officials said Thompson Road is in need of a V-shaped trench line.

Plans are to install the drainage line six feet under the road and place fill a foot above the drainage line.

The Fawn-Frazer Water Authority then will install a new, plastic water line a foot above the township’s drainage line, then fill the rest of the way to the road’s surface.

Fawn will then repave the road above the new lines.

A project to fix Metz Road, planned for this year, was delayed and a related contract rescinded in June by supervisors so the money could be moved to the Sun Mine-Thompson project.

Montanari said the township now can redefine the scope of the Metz Road project with Senate Engineering.