The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 7

FOURTH OI FRIDAY JULY 1981 THE MORNING CALL SECTION ALLEWTOWW LEHIGH COUNTY DRBC effort to prptect wells getting little response By RANDY KRAFT Of The Morning Call it wanted anyone with a well which draws'over 10,000 gallons a day to register with the Department of Environmental Resources. It projected there could easily be 500 such wells in the area which includes Lower Milford Township in Lehigh County, all of Montgomery County, more than half of Bucks County, plus chunks of Berks and Chester counties. Those who own such wells were supposed to register with the state by July 1. But 23 days after that deadline, Only 97 well owners have registered, and another eight applications still are being processed. Last January, the Delaware River Basin Commission began an attempt to learn who has wells which pump between 10,000 and 100,000 gallons of water a day in parts of five southeastern Pennsylvania counties.

In most areas of the Delaware basin, wells must be registered with the commission only if they pump more than 100.000 gallons a But much of the area between Allentown and Philadelphia has had its groundwater depleted by too much development. The water table is almost at the limit of what it can support. In fact, in some places the water already is being pumped out faster than it recharges. So last winter the commission let it be known that mission, a regional bureaucracy which regulates all the groundwater in this part of Pennsylvania. So you go to it for help, by placing a long-distance call to its headquarters in Trenton.

"Wait a minute," says the guy on the phone. "Where were you back in 1981 when you could have prevented all this trouble by investing a mere five bucks to register your well with us? If you had done that, we would have known you already had a well in that area and might not have approved the new ones which took your water. But since we didn't know you were there we couldn't stop the new ones from going in." Tough luck, buddy. Suppose someday you own a well which pumps a lot of water out of the ground say at least 10,000 gallons a day and it suddenly goes dry. You find out that it went dry because someone else drilled big wells nearby which tapped the same groundwater you were getting.

"Unfair!" you shout. "I was here first!" And you go hunting for some government agency to come to your aid. You hear about the Delaware River Basin Com Please See WELLS Page B3 Com mission VS" cots to limi fronni city plain By TIM BLANGGER Morning Call Intern 4 'i iiitlSPiftliiSi caps in the proposed charter, said the move would reaffirm the democratic processes in the city. "I don't believe in caps generally, and so I would not want the cap so low that the city couldn't raise money through property taxes," Roth said. Roth said the move by commission member Joseph Bakes, Allentown county sheriff, to place caps on taxes was done for "public relations purposes." Bakes was attending a sheriff's conference and did not attend the meeting.

In voting to eliminate tax caps, commission member Leon Eisenhard, a Lehigh County commissioner, said the county, under its home-rule charter, is not limited by tax caps. He said the county commissioners have not increased taxes during the past several years because it is politically unpopular to do so. Please See TAX LIMITS PageB4- The Allentown Government Study Commission voted last night to include no tax ceilings in the city's proposed home-rule charter. At the commission's meeting last month, N. James Flunk, city finance officer, drew up several tax options that would have put caps on the amount of property tax the city may levy.

By voting to have no ceilings on any city tax, commission members left the issue of taxing levels up to future city councils. Concern over the existing tax system was a major reason for the formation of the study commission 18 months ago. Commission members have grappled with issues such as equitable distribution of the tax burden, alternatives to the heavy dependence on real estate taxes and tax relief for persons on low or fixed incomes. Atty. Gerald Roth, a commission member who made the motion to eliminate tax lflIiitliiM Photography by ALAN JACOBSON Hope Wessner, Dorothy Hoffman.

C. Sue Hartke. Charmaine Arner and Jeanette Weinstock 'Berg students 'dig' this course Troxell-Steckel descendant helps in restoration By BOB WITTMAN Of The Morning Call Katie Wotring holds the map she drew The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority will end commuter rail service from Quakertown to Lansdale as of midnight Sunday and does not plan to add buses as an alternative for some of the displaced train riders, a SEPTA spokesman said yesterday. According to State Rep. George Kanuck, R-133rd District, the SEPTA decision would not affect local plans to restore passenger rail service to the Lehigh Valley.

Kanuck is working with Hanover Township, Northampton County, supervisors in establishing a Bethlehem-to-Lansdale train shuttle whioh would provide commuters with access to SEPTA-sponsored trains to Philadelphia. The Hanover Township supervisors have created an authority to do so. SEPTA cuts local service No bus route planned for Quakertown-Lansdale illllliiiiiSiilPiilBi Please See SEPTA Page B4 151 Pllll IliiBlllllfciii The course at Muhlenberg College was titled "Anthropology 16: Field Study in Archaeology," but it wasn't long before its students had dubbed it "Poison Sumac 333." For this wasn't a course of books, lectures, blackboards and homework. It was a study using masonry trowels, small brushes and bug spray, an exercise in dirty trouser legs and grimy hands. It was an archaeological dig.

Course instructor and dig master was Hope Wessner, a graduate student at Lehigh University, who directed her charges at the site of Lehigh County Historical Society's Troxell-Steckel House in Egypt. But the one who said, "Dig here," was 89-year-old Katie Wotring, a descendant of both the Troxells and the Steckels and a frequent visitor to the house when she was a child. Those visits go back way back to a time previous to 1904 when the last of her Steckel relatives died. Mrs. Wotring, a Quakertown native who lives in Allentown, visited the site again several weeks ago and, with the aid of a free-hand map she drew, showed the location of a barn, a back porch missing from the society's restoration, a bake oven and a stone walkway.

One thing she remembered that the would-be archaeologists couldn't find was a cistern. With the help of Mrs. Wotring, they corrected some misinformation (the existing barn was originally part of a neighboring farm and added a few more attractions for visitors to see. Some of the dig sites might eventually be preserved with plexiglass coverings. The most challenging work was the search for a stone foundation of the original lit Little progress on funds for R.

309, Snyder says Hiill llwilipiilili State Ren. Don Snvder shnwpH iin at laet I tip! mm i iinrr The township has fought for years to have medial barriers installed along the road, and Snyder has tried to help, i "It's the same excuse," Snyder said. "No federal money and no state money." Although he said he has no basis to confirm it, Snyder said he believes that the Route 309 improvements are tied into the 1-78 project. "I think there's a question that if 309 became a part of the 1-78 project, the medial barriers would be installed." Please See SNYDER Page B4 night's Salisbury Township commissioners meeting with a progress report on his efforts to get state money for repairs to a hazardous stretch of Route His report showed little progress. Snyder, a Republican, said he has gotten the "continual runaround" from both state-and federal authorities that say they have no money earmarked for Route 309.

A seven-mile stretch of the road from Tilghman Street to Oakhurst Drive in Upper Saucon Township has been the scene of serious accidents, including two recent fatalities. foundation. In fact, it looks like the long- gone barn was built atop the foundations of an even earlier barn, but more work will be necessary before anyone can conclude that with certainty. The course was completed on July 10, but the work at the historic property has continued. Said Ms.

Wessner, "The people who are here now are just ultra-devoted." Swiss bank barn. It was buried under a hillside and covered by a tangle of brush. "We started by using machetes," said Ms. Wessner. But when the work proved too great and the poison sumac too infectious, the County of Lehigh generously donated a backhoe that skimmed away the hillside along with its dangerous undergrowth.

What emerged from the digging and scratching that followed was the corner of a Lehigh names Chari8G ASD to advertise Aug. 2 for successor to Wilson public defender lllliir jllllilllllliBlllll v. s- He conducts a private law practice at 441 Linden St. and was previously associated with Atty. Wallace Worth's law offices at 515 Linden Allentown.

A graduate of Dieruff High School, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Louisville Law School, he is a son of Charles Charles, Allentown's assistant police chief, and a brother of Atty. Dennis Charles of the county solicitor's staff. Please See CHARLES Page B4 pear on that date in the New York Times as well as several trade publications. Bloch said Oct. 31 has been set as the deadline for receiving applications.

The selection committee intends to narrow the field of applicants down to five to be recommended to the board for final interview and selection. Please See ASD Page B3 By WALT ROLAND Of The Morning Call Allentown Atty. Frederick Charles, 30, has been confirmed in an 8-0 vote of theLehigh County commissioners as the county's chief public defender. The part-time post pays an estimated $20,000 a year, roughly $5,000 per year more than Charles has been receiving the past two years as a part-time assistant public defender. By BILLGERNERD Of The Morning Call Allentown School Board members learned last night the district will go public Aug.

2 in its quest for a new superintendent to succeed Dr. Charles Wilson. Board Vice President Carol Bloch, who, with Director Gail Farnham, was designated to spearhead a drive to seek a replacement for Wilson, told her colleagues advertisements will ap Frederick Charles chief public defender Charles Wilson replacement sought.