Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
A scrap metal company nestled near a marshy wooded area in Middletown Township drew the attention of state law enforcement and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection again this week.
A LevittownNow.com reporter heading from an assignment on Wednesday stumbled upon state officials surveying what appeared to be oil that is believed to have come from Langhorne Scrap Metal on Big Oak Road. The reporter found a similar situation in the same area in April 2018.
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Records and information obtained this week by this news organization show there have been other problems reported at the site in recent years.
The amount of oil that leaked from the scrap metal site to outside areas, including drains and a marsh, was not known as of Friday.
Middletown Township Fire Marshal Jim McGuire said his crews were called to the site Wednesday morning for reports of oil that was running down Big Oak Road. Firefighters ended up finding oil in the roadway, waterways, and the nearby marsh.
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Firefighters, according to McGuire, put down booms and pads to stop the movement of oil. They called a spill response trailer from the Langhorne-Middletown Fire Company to assist in their effect.
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection responded to the scene. Investigators took pictures and notes.
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Virginia Cain, a spokesperson for the DEP, confirmed that oil entered the wetland and an emulsified oil product was spotted on the surface of water. The extent of the spill and its impacts were under investigation.
McGuire said he was not sure how much oil leaked, but it appeared to be a “fairly significant amount.”
Langhorne Scrap Metal had to contract a private company to provide further clean up, according to Cain.
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Records show that oil has leaked from the facility in the past and McGuire said there have been citations issued for open burning.
A 2019 consent assessment of civil penalty was agreed to by Langhorne Scrap Metal and the DEP.
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The document states that in August 2018 officials found waste oil discharging from the company’s site into a tributary of the Mill Creek, which runs all the way to Levittown, and a nearby wetland area. During a storm in November 2018, a state inspection showed waste oil was discharged from the facility onto the roadside, a swale, and into wetlands.
The agreement noted that Langhorne Scrap Metal violated state regulations and failed to take “appropriate measures to prevent the release of a polluting substance.”
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The business agreed to make an initial payment of $5,341 dollars and five additional biannual payments of $5,000 to the state clean water fund, according to documents reviewed by LevittownNow.com.
In April, the DEP sent a notice of violation to Nedal Abuhumoud of Langhorne Scrap Metal that alleged a February inspection found a sheen near uncovered metal and car parts, stormwater with a sheen flowing from a pile into a stormwater outlet, oil and absorbent pads on the ground that led up to a stormwater inlet, signs the facility’s underground basin had a “significant amount of oil and sheen in it,” and that an oil sheen was being discharged to the roadway and into the Mill Creek tributary.
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District court filings show Middletown Township has cited the owner of the business over over the past year for unpermitted burning at the facility.
On Thursday, a message for comment was left with the owner of the company. As of Friday afternoon, the request for comment was not returned.
The DEP plans to return for an inspection as the business next week.
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