Schuylkill County commissioners next week will revisit their 2-1 vote to sell two parcels of land in Tremont Township to the Nature Conservancy Pennsylvania for $1.37 million.

“We’ll put it on again for a vote next week,” said Commissioners Chairman Barron L. Hetherington.

His agreement came after Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. asked, for the second time, to have the board reconsider its vote.

The Conservancy wants to buy the parcels - a 744-acre property and a 232-acre one separated by Interstate 81 - on behalf of the state game commission.

On March 8, Hetherington and Commissioner Gary J. Hess voted to sell the parcels.

Halcovage was opposed because other people were interested in it for the mineral rights.

Hetherington and Hess at the time said the land could not be used for mineral rights because of its proximity to the Lebanon Reservoir.

Further, they said, selling it to the Conservancy, which would convey it to the Game Commission, would keep the land open for hunting and recreation. A private owner would likely forbid such activities.

Halcovage said the price was below the county’s established $2,000 an acre.

The Conservancy hired an independent appraiser to arrive at the Fair Market Value purchase offer.

On April 12, Halcovage asked to revisit the vote on April 19, saying First Assistant County Solicitor Glenn T. Roth told him the sale agreement was still in the draft stage.

Hetherington rebuffed him, saying the vote had been taken and the matter was finished.

On Wednesday, Hetherington and Halcovage again presented their respective views of the situation and Halcovage’s requests to schedule a second vote on the proposed sale or a vote to rescind it.

Parks and recreation

Hetherington read aloud a letter from the Friends of Schuylkill Parks and Recreation.

The letter supported the sale of the parcels to the Conservancy/Game Commission.

“No one has come forward in the last 39 years with an offer on that parcel,” the letter said.

“The stars have finally aligned to make this sale possible so that these lands are open and accessible to the public hunters forever,” it said.

But Halcovage said, “The Conservancy is giving us an amount of money to put a hold on it because they don’t even know if they have the money yet to purchase this.”

He asked to have that rescinded “until we’ve been able to do a better study on the different options that we have for this land.”

Coal plant owner

At the beginning of the meeting, Hegins Township Supervisor Leroy Shuey and mining engineer David Williams, both urged commissioners to sell or lease the land to coal preparation plant owner Rick Bender.

The sale or lease would benefit Hegins Township, which is close to Tremont, but is separated by a swath formed by Porter and Frailey townships.

Shuey said Bender has been operating his plant for “many years and has been a very positive asset for the county and outside of the county.”

Bender has an adjacent mining property. Expanding his operations would be a better choice of coal suppliers, Shuey said.

“There aren’t many preparation plants around any more. And the more we lose, that’s the more chance of a monopoly being developed,” he said.

Shuey said Bender is interested in the property, and that selling it or leasing it to him would help keep coal prices down.

Also, he said the ash that is collected from Hegins and surrounding communities and put on the operation’s property is used as anti skid on roads in winter.

“If you take that away from us, now you’re putting more of a burden on the townships, because if we need to replace this ash, with material that we have to purchase, that’s an added expense. We don’t need added expenses,” Shuey said.

Williams, of Hegins Township, has been a mining engineer for 46 years.

Hearings

He said he was involved with hearings in the 1980s about a Lebanon reservoir project to build a new dam on behalf of a mineral and surface company that operated in the vicinity.

Hess said at the March 8 meeting that the larger parcel could not be used for mining because of its proximity to the Lebanon Reservoir.

The smaller property, Williams said, is “absolutely not involved with the Lebanon Reservoir. It doesn’t drain into the reservoir,” he said.

Referring to the Lebanon Reservoir hearings, he said the smaller parcel was home to a deep mining operation, under lease from the county.

Two other companies obtained state permits for deep mining on the property, as well as a strip mining operation - all under county leases.

“So there was income coming in for the county, the townships, the school districts, because of these leases and mining of coal,” Williams said.

Bender, an owner of Sherman Coal Company and Superior Coal Company, attended the meeting, but did not speak.

“I’m not sure what they would do if Mr. Bender goes out of business and can’t mine coal,” Williams said.

Halcovage said he’s in favor of leasing the land for its mineral rights, then, when it’s depleted, selling it to the Nature Conservancy.

Hess said that since the “Game Commission is a government agency, and that’s one reason why it did not go out for bids at the time. They came to us. We weren’t looking to sell it at the time.”

If Bender or another private entity wanted to buy the parcels, they would have to “go out on auction-type thing. If it comes down to that, it’s not guaranteed that you would get it if someone else bid on it,” Hess said.

Hetherington stood firm on his decision, but agreed to add the proposed sale to the April 26 agenda.

“My position is still the same, this is part of the Open Space Plan for the western Schuylkill.

“This is part of our green space, open space, for the long term. Selling it to private ownership means it would be posted (off limits to the public).”

He said the board made the right decision. “Once I’ve entered a deal, I don’t like to break a deal. If the Conservancy is not successful in getting the grant … that would be a good time to discuss selling it to someone else,” he said.

“But right now, my position is that we had a vote, we took it, and we have an agreement with the group. It would be very troubling to back on our word and break that deal,” Hetherington said.