PALMYRA, Pa. — Rock Catalone has lived in Palmyra, Lebanon County for more than two decades.
To him, sinkholes are nothing new.
“They just keep opening up and opening up, and hopefully someday Palmyra isn’t in the hole," joked Catalone.
Over the last 15 years, the borough has spent approximately $3.5 million for sinkhole repairs, according to borough manager, Roger Powl.
Powl said most of that amount was for repairs associated with the 2013 sinkhole on East Cherry Street, which destroyed three duplex homes.
“Palmyra has hundreds of them, Hershey has hundreds of them," said Catalone. "A lot of them you don’t even hear about, they just patch them and go.”
A sinkhole recently popped up right outside Rock’s driveway, in the intersection of Apple Alley and South Franklin Street.
It’s been patched up but a more permanent repair is yet to be done.
The borough says all of the underground work is complete, but the surface of the road still needs to be repaved.
“When they paved it, all they did was fill it full of blacktop and paved over top of it, so it held up for 10 years and now it’s sinking," explained Catalone. "Hopefully it’s not a big problem."
Melissa Massey just moved to Palmyra and lives across the alleyway from Catalone.
She says the sinkhole problem is apparent across town.
“Living here, I don’t want a little pond at the end of my alleyway," Massey said. "[Crews] were here [fixing it] for awhile but it still collects water so I’m not sure what they did”
The good news for these neighbors is the borough will soon launch a study that will take all of its existing geophysical data and create a map to paint a better picture of what exactly is happening underground.
A storm water model for the whole town will be done too, showing how and where rainfall is accumulating.
“Where the rock is at fault, and when the water starts to seep down to the rock, it eventually washes away, and then you have the sinkhole," said Catalone.
The goal of the new study is for the borough to use all of the compiled information to focus mitigation efforts on areas with more ponding.
“It’s just a thing you got to live with," said Catalone. "They’ve been all over, all over town.”
FOX43 was also contacted recently by residents living in the MacIntosh Crossings development on East Spruce Street in Palmyra.
They have concerns about a reoccurring sinkhole that has once again opened up in a retention basin behind several of the properties.
The field is not owned by the borough, and therefore the sinkhole is not their responsibility to fix.
Rather the land is owned by a private developer, H.R. Weaver.
FOX43 reached out to the developer on Tuesday to see if there is any timeline for repairs, but did not hear back.
Meanwhile, Palmyra's borough council is expected to provide updates on repairs of several sinkholes at its meeting on Tuesday night.
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