Court filing: PPL wants South Market Street

SHENANDOAH – A utility company that has already purchased and razed much of a Shenandoah neighborhood plans to ask for one of the streets there, too.

Court paperwork filed by PPL Electric Utilities in May noted that the utility plans to file a vacation petition, seeking South Market Street from Poplar Street to Laurel Street.

Borough council had been notified earlier in the year that “a utility” would be seeking the street, but the utility was not identified at that time.

Borough Manager Tony Sajone said there has not been an update since.

Without the 300 block of South Market Street, East Poplar Street would become a dead-end. There are still occupied homes, as well, on both South Market and East Poplar Streets.

The petition has not yet been filed. PPL is currently seeking small portions of land via adverse possession they say has been occupied by them or the owners whose land they purchased for several decades.

Specifically, they want a short strip of land behind the homes on East Poplar Street where their property extended beyond the rear fence line, as well as a driveway that previously served numerous coal company homes.

Since May of 2018, when the Sentinel broke the story, the utility company has been investigating and remediating environmental impacts of the former Shenandoah manufactured gas facility at the present site of Burger King.

The utility company said in 2020 its efforts are to evaluate the “extent of impacts from coal tar, coal tar residues and oils in the soil, and groundwater at the site and in the immediate vicinity.” Coal tar was a byproduct created by the former facility, which heated coal to produce gas.

PPL did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the current status of the project or the plans to seek South Market Street itself.

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