If You Ask Me/By Martha Knight

An aerial photo posted on the Port Allegany, Remember When… website shows the borough and its setting amid foothills and valleys, as the community looked from above, some decades ago.

It must have been late afternoon. Long shadows stretch from trees on the flats, and mark the east side of Snyder Hill and show the depth of Steele Hollow. There is no Port Allegany Elementary School, no Clyde Lynch Drive,

Here is an industrial community, with sprawling factories. There’s a hospital, but no large medical complex. The Allegheny meanders along its circuitous route, mostly in shadow. The Lillibridge and Portage amble to meet it. They look placid. We know they are not always harmless.

There’s the sewage treatment plant, with its ponds and lagoons. Not so long ago there was talk of building on, adding a polymer process, constructing at least one big holding tank. Apparently that will not be necessary.

The bird’s eye view is charming. Distance lends enchantment. We feel nostalgia. It was nice when Pitt-Corning needed more offices, more manufacturing space, had a gatehouse farther up, warehouses full of ware, made foamglass, had parking lots filled with cars. I wish there were three shift changes a day past my house, now. I wish the shipping department bustled all the time. For that matter, it was great when R&D was based here, wasn’t it! Doc Baker, Dr. D’Eustachio, Miglarese, Holman, others…

Looking at the aerial view, I see a map of the borough superimposed on it. It strikes me that it is less than obvious where the borough limits are, where the borough leaves off and the township begins.

We are as landlocked, as surrounded, as Switzerland. Fortunately for us, Liberty Township and Port Allegany are on friendly terms. There have been no border disputes. Far from wanting to keep townshippians from coming into the borough, the industries have been delighted to have many of them come into town to work and shop.

For generations, borough industries catered to or depended on  the farming and lumbering industries. Abbott’s Dairies, American Extract, the planing mill, the feed mill, GLF/Agway, North Penn. Where did North Penn get all that gas? Surely not from wells in Port Allegany.

On the photo U.S. 6 and PA 155 stand out clearly. They run through the township too.

We can just make out the fire hall. Liberty Township shares a fire protection district with Port Allegany Borough, and with part of Annin Township. Some volunteers come from there. Fires are fought in and out of the borough, as monthly reports show. Star Hose services are performed there when there are accidents, high water and other emergencies.

Ambulances are dispatched into the township fairly often. The Bookmobile delivers library services far beyond borough borders.

Most readers cannot recall when borough schools were distinct from township schools. But I know from my father’s large, impressive diploma from Wrights School that the township’s educational services ended at eighth grade. After that, those who could get there could attend the Port Allegany High School. He hopped the Pennsy to get to Port, and trotted from the depot to the high school. School started at 9 a.m. and was dismissed at 4 p.m.; then he found his way back to the family farm. I think the township paid the borough something to cover the tuition to high school. The school buses must have been provided by the township school system, but most of the kids who came to the country schools walked.

Liberty Consolidated School was built by the township so it could close its inadequate little country schools; Brooklynside School operated for some years after that. The county superintendency was involved in some of the decisions that redrew school districts, and eventually Port Allegany and Liberty Township threw their lot together. I suppose there were those who thought this would be the ruination of the borough’s school system, and that Liberty Township would lose all autonomy and its children would be homogenized beyond recognition. Eastmans, Strombergs, Caskeys, Sawyers and Fortners would forget where they came from.

But it seemed to work out quite well. Being in a school with a cafeteria and a library wasn’t bad, as it turned out, and students enjoyed the music and sports programs. When further consolidation took place, and more townships were swept into the Port Allegany School District, it just seemed like a logical next step. A Google map or Google Earth overflight shows us the logic.

Our small, rural municipalities, sometimes with strong nudges from the state, have acknowledged that aquifers, watersheds and sewage do not recognize boundaries, any more than smoke read No Smoking signs back when restaurants were zoned for along those lines. The county established a Solid Waste Authority in recognition of the fact that all the municipalities would have to deal with the change to sanitary landfills, and we could not do it individually.

Recently the borough and the township decided to collaborate extensively to seek a PennWORKS grant, and to extend the sewer and water lines south into Liberty Township from that we think of as the borough sewer and water system. One factor in the collaboration is the fact that the granting agencies strongly favor projects where inter-municipal collaboration is involved. Economy of scale has been apparent in all the kinds of collaboration mentioned in this column.

Can you think of more ways in which Greater Port Allegany (the borough and township combined area) can achieve greater collaboration? Planning? Purchasing? Police protection? Snow removal? Tourism?

Peace.

Drymar@gmail.com. 642-7552.