On October 22, 2024, Leet Commissioners required Quaker Valley School District (QVSD) to satisfy 18 conditions to obtain final approval for a development permit to start construction of proposed new high school on a hilltop site off Camp Meeting Road. Condition #7 is “Approvals by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” including permits from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). On November 12, 2024 QVSD Board formally accepted these 18 conditions.
On January 24, 2025 DEP “received a joint water obstruction and encroachment permit application” from QVSD. On February 7, 2025, PADEP sent an Administrative Incompleteness Letter listing 23 items, including 7 sub items of additional information “needed before a technical review of the application can commence”. The second of 23 items states application fee was incorrect. “The fees are waived for school districts”, thus “applicant should follow the PA DEP procedure to request a refund of any fees that were paid.” QVSD has until April 8, 2025 to comply. We encourage you to view the list of 23 incomplete items yourself and review the entire PADEP application. Given that this project involves water obstruction and wetland impact, the environmental aspects of the hilltop site need to be closely monitored.
How competent are the QVSD consultants that prepared the PADEP application if they did not even know that a school district did not have to submit a fee? An experienced, highly competent and local engineering consultant, Michael Baker International, performed early site analysis on the proposed hilltop site and noted that the required site preparation to create a buildable area was “high risk”. Michael Baker was replaced with other site engineering consultants that prepared the incomplete permit application to DEP. How many other permit applications to Allegheny County Conservation District and PennDOT are also poorly prepared? How much additional QVSD taxpayer funds will be spent on questionably competent consultants?
DEP is planning “the joint permit and NPDES permit processes [which] include public comment periods prior to DEP making a decision on each application. DEP will notice the public comment periods in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.”
Contact your QVSD Board member and question their choices of currently engaged engineering consultants and how much more taxpayer money will need to be spent to proceed?
Here is link to the QVSD application to PA DEP:
https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dep/about-dep/regional-office-locations/southwest-regional-office/southwest-community-information/quaker-valley-high-school-campus-construction.html
Please share this critical information with your neighbors.