Four individuals from four organizations that participated in the remediation of the Kittatinny Ridge behind Palmerton and at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center visited the center on April 10 to talk about reviving the Blue Mountain.

They were Jennifer Lansing, an ecologist who works for Arcadia; Jeff Groy for CBS, the responsible party; Jim Kunkle, Department of Environmental Protection coordinator and Charles Root, site manager for the Environmental Protection Agency.Dan Kunkle, director of the Nature Center, said he has been working with the four individuals for 12 years. Kunkle said five men, who worked on the site, were present and indicative that the remediation created local jobs.Root said it is special to have a Superfund site that is one of a kind and to have a building such as the Osprey House, where meetings are held at the center. He said there are 1,700 sites in the United States. Originally the Superfund was funded by a tax on chemical and oil industries that went into a trust fund for use when a responsible party would not pay the cost.The fund also paid for an emergency response such as a chemical spill, but the fund is no longer authorized.A cleanup provides remedial action to protect health, revegetate, do residential cleanups and check both ground and surface water. Root said 3,000 acres were affected near Palmerton and are contaminated with lead, cadmium and zinc, allegedly from New Jersey Zinc smelting. The zinc was the most serious for vegetation.Without the cooperation of various private landowners on the Superfund site, the remediation would not have happened, he said.Jim Kunkle said his job is to inspect landfills and industrial sites for their environmental cleanup and brownfields. He grew up in Lehighton, and at that time the cinder bank at Palmerton was being mined. He said a lot of people did not think remediation was needed and did not want anything done.After a 2003 assessment, some forested land was added to the Pennsylvania Game Commission lands that are on the mountain.Groy, a vice president at entertainment giant CBS, said the firm is involved with 40 Superfund sites in 20 states.He said when he got involved, Horsehead Industries was doing cleanup until it had to file for bankruptcy. Behind the town, miles of roads were built on the hill, and sewage sludge was spread. Adding seeds and compost by helicopter did not work well.Dan Kunkle proposed the concept of warm-season grasses, and a great partnership was formed. This is the only site where warm-season grasses were used.When they started, there were many disbelievers, he said. There were landslides because there was no vegetation to hold the land in place."On a landfill or groundwater, you don't see the results like you do here," Groy said. The company used a tractor and manure spreader to seed the lower part of the mountain. The top was aerial seeded after a test proved it would work.He said work is continuing on the cinder bank.Lansing said the work was done with many in the audience and community volunteering.In 1987 the earliest steps were taken to minimize runoff. Part of the Appalachian Trail was diverted.Different sections of the mountain were treated at different times, which is the reason for different appearances.A material incorporating sludge, ash and limestone known as Ecoloam was developed. Aerial testing seeding was done in 2003 for the 56 acres where the slope was too great. The limestone brought the pH to 5, still acidic but at a level where growth could occur.Fifteen thousand trees were planted. Another 4,500 trees will be planted this year on 70 acres, many of them oaks. Tree holes are dug by auger, but are backfilled by hand and watered and fertilized.Without the need for building roads, the land was not further disturbed.Dan Kunkle said they wanted a road from the electrical towers, but it would have destroyed the savanna grassland, which is a special type of area. It was easy to lay mulch where ground seeding was done, but not on the higher slopes. The amendments added to the seeds for aerial seeding came into Slatington Airport.The results are still not as good as the ground-seeded areas, Lansing said.Resource islands include American chestnut trees, some of which are pure and some 85 percent blight resistant. Exclusion areas are fences that keep deer out to compare protected and unprotected areas. Eighty-six percent of the chestnut trees survived, as did 80 percent to 90 percent of the oaks.In response to a question, work will be finished when a goal of 60 percent to 70 percent ground cover and 50 trees per acre is reached. Monitoring will continue for 30 years. Asked how much money CBS put into the work, Root said he had no answer but that it was tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars.Bob Hoopes, a member of the center's board of directors, said what was experimental at the center can be used other places.Root said it was sometimes hard for people to understand but "trying something new is not necessarily bad."The prescribed burn was questioned, but testing results are not yet in, Dan Kunkle said.The day of the program there were three visitors from China who came to learn about metal-contaminated soil for remediation in the rice paddies.