Welcome!

 

My name is Julie Rebitch. I live on a small farm in southwestern Pennsylvania that dates to the early 1820s. My husband's grandparents purchased the farm from the original homesteaders early in the 1920s. Our adult children are the fourth generation of his family to have lived here. 

Welcome to "the view from my window" 
where I'll share important information and insight into Delmont Borough's failing sanitary sewer system, significant portions of which run through our family property. The Borough's sanitary sewer system regularly discharges untreated human waste and other bio hazards directly onto our private property and into Beaver Run, a significant source of municipal water provided by the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County.

ONE view from my window
At this time of year, one view from my window boasts white-tailed deer grazing in the fields below the house, multiple flocks of Canadian geese that have come home to nest, and a couple of blue herons that coast in from time to time from a neighboring property. An orchestra of birds sends sweet music through our bedroom windows early in the morning, and chipmunks and squirrels chatter about their finds in the front yard. Cows shuffle and "moo" out in the pasture fields and Mallard ducks occasionally visit to swim in the pond. We are also home to five leghorn chickens, who earn their keep by giving us five beautiful eggs each morning, and a chubby cat named "Cat" who does nothing at all to earn her keep. Soon we'll be planting corn and barley fields, and vegetables of many varieties in our gardens, and colorful marigolds up around the boulders at the top of our drive. Later this year, we'll harvest the crops and can the vegetables.

Having painted that mental picture for you, I share this beautiful "view from my window" taken at sunrise from ONE side of our back deck:

a DIFFERENT view from my window

Unfortunately, we are subject to vastly different views of an area not far beyond the OTHER side of our back deck. The photo and video below were captured on February 22 of this year at the location on our family property where Delmont Borough's sanitary sewer system follows along Beaver Run (upper right in the photo). Multiple manholes discharged untreated human waste directly into Beaver Run on a nearly unabated basis during the entire week of February 16 through February 25.

The three photos presented below were taken on March 4, a week later, and document just one of a number of white trails of pulverized used toilet tissue and other unsanitary matter left in the wake of the discharges. At no time has Delmont Borough taken action to remediate the significant human bio hazard areas left behind following its sewage discharges.

   

These discharges are illegal.
The commandeering of our private property for this purpose is illegal.
These illegal acts are being perpetrated by the Borough on a selective, discriminatory basis.

Newspaper articles, photos and videos, and archived correspondence document that the Borough's habitual sewage discharges have occurred at ever more frequent intervals and at ever increasing volumes over the last 20+ years with the full and certain knowledge of elected Borough officials and the Borough's solicitor and its consulting engineers, and have been sanctioned through its inaction by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

The Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County, which sources drinking water it provides to consumers directly from Beaver Run, has been apprised of these circumstances on many occasions. State Representative Eric Nelson and State Senator Kim Ward have also been apprised of these circumstances. Westmoreland County's Board of Commissioners sends a representative to the monthly public meetings of Delmont Borough council and are presumably apprised of these circumstances.

All of these parties - elected Borough officials, Borough legal and engineering consultants of long standing, the PA DEP, PA state representatives, the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County, and Westmoreland County's Board of Commissioners - are aware that Delmont Borough is engaged in the commission of illegal acts through its commandeering of private property for purposes of discharging untreated human waste into Beaver Run in violation of the PA Clean Streams Law and the US Clean Streams Act.

So... the view from my window
In the days and weeks to come, I will post information and insight about this issue - an entirely different type of "i and i" than the storm water inflow and infiltration into Delmont Borough's sanitary sewer system that originates in the Borough and which we believe is the primary cause of the Borough's habitual sanitary sewer discharges into our community's drinking water source and into the local ecosystem and wildlife habitat.

I welcome your interest and your comments (please post below!). My hope is that you will visit often and also share the link to this blog with family members, friends, co-workers... anyone with a concern for our local environment and our municipal water. At only 1.1 square miles Delmont Borough may be small, but the Borough's illegal activities loom large over the wider community.