HARLEYSVILLE, Pa. -
Vicki Ball stands in the backyard of her Harleysville home and peers across Lucon road at the growing mountain of dirt being pushed around by an earth mover.
She sighs. "That's not the view I want to see, first thing in the morning..."
The mounds of dirt began arriving by the truckload last August- to create a natural barrier for errant shots from the driving range of the municipally-owned Lederach golf course. Lower Salford decided against erecting nets because, they say, repairs and replacement would result in "ongoing costs."
But by the spring of this year, Vicki Ball says she had two questions: "Why are the trucks still coming and how high is this going to go?"
Her husband Frank took a closer look at the pile- and brought his camera along.
His photos show all manner of construction debris, mixed in with the dirt.
One day he followed a dump truck from the course. "It went down into Skippack township to another development," he says. Dirt 'imported' from another development in another town, to make this mountain even higher? "Right," says Frank.
"I realize they're not going to haul it away, but I would like it brought down to the original level like it was in between the two big hills they put in there, so we could have our view back."
I went looking for answers from Lower Salford township manager Joe Czajkowski.
He admits they ran out of local fill dirt and had to import the rest.
He says the construction debris was the result of illegal dumping.
And he promises work at the course will be finished in a week- two, at the most, with the valley between the mounds reduced in height so the Balls can retain some of their golf course view.
"It'll look like much to the other berms around the course," says Czajkowski. Covered in"grass and trees and bushes." So the view will not be the way it used to be (Frank Ball built his home 48 years ago and the golf course went in around eight years back) but it will be better than the mess that's out there right now? "We certainly intend that to be the case," says Czajkowski.
We'll be watching.
