CENTER TOWNSHIP, Pa. — The Hull Plan Lake in Center Township, Butler County, was formed in the 1940s. That’s when the dam was built. The Hull Plan Residents Association is the one that maintains the dam. The president said he’s known for the last ten years that there are issues here, but the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said they haven’t done anything to fix those issues.
On Monday, Brad Cavaliero was served with a lawsuit from the DEP. The DEP said the dam could not survive what it calls a 100-year-flood. It would impact four homes and a business downstream if the dam breached, affecting 32 people.
“That’s just their next natural step of what they do,” Cavaliero said.
The DEP said the dam was unsafe in 2021. Cavaliero says the association has been working to fix it for 10 years.
“The, I call it the bridge, itself was sagging,” he said.
Cavaliero said he went to Center Township, and they had an agreement to fix it, but the agreement dissolved.
Photos show more issues inside the spillway in January as the structure of the bridge gave way. Volunteers cleaned the debris, but more of the bridge and dam are sagging. The bridge is used by school buses every day.
“My major concern is the bridge here, which is not weight restricted, that it collapses while someone is travelling over it,” Cavaliero said.
Cavaliero said the DEP is ordering the association to remove water from the lake.
Cavaliero said they have to get a permit from the Fish and Boat Commission, have the fish removed, then drain the lake.
“I’m hoping we can do this within a month’s time,” he said.
Once the lake is drained, the residents association has to either fix the dam and get engineers to improve the spillway or remove the dam entirely.
That would remove the lake.
“There’s a good possibility of there not being a lake,” Cavaliero said. “At least 50%, maybe 80% [chance].”
Cavaliero said it will cost at least a half a million dollars. The DEP did not return Channel 11’s email asking for comment.
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