Orchard

WAYNESBORO, PA. Representatives of a Wyomissing, Pa., developer assured Washington Township, Pa., officials on Friday that conditions will be closely monitored as crews move soil contaminated with arsenic and lead at an apple orchard on Old Forge Road. Carlino Development Group agreed to provide a PowerPoint presentation to the public at a 7 p.m. workshop meeting May 10. The supervisors and residents have expressed concerns about toxins spreading to the water and air as 6 inches of soil are scraped off and mounded at the site prior to construction of approximately 500 homes for the Thornhill Development.

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - Washington Township, Pa., officials and representatives of Carlino Development Group of Wyomissing, Pa., are scheduled to talk today about what one resident recently called "our own, very personal 187-acre Superfund site. " Pat O'Connor was referring to the Thornhill Development in planning stages on a former apple orchard on Old Forge Road. Pesticides applied to the apples over several decades have left arsenic and lead in the soil, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Spokesman John Repetz said.

bonnieb@herald-mail.com GREENCASTLE, Pa. - A family-owned, five-generation orchard on Tuesday became the first fruit operation to be preserved in Franklin County. Tracey's Orchard, just east of Greencastle, officially was entered into the Franklin County Agricultural Land Preservation Program, which acquires the right to develop the land. The farm will remain agricultural land in perpetuity. The amount paid to the landowner is the difference between the value of the land for development and its value as farmland.

daniels@herald-mail.com RINGGOLD - Last week, bees were on J.D. Rinehart's mind. Orchard workers have just about two weeks to pollinate the apple trees, and Rinehart was hoping temperatures would climb into the 70s or 80s, optimum weather for the task. The bees were not buzzing, nor were they anywhere to be seen, as Rinehart walked from the 80 acres of peach trees on one side of Mong Road to his truck on this overcast Tuesday morning. In a moment he would be heading the short distance down Rinehart Road to the apple trees where, again, no bees were to be found.

pepperb@herald-mail.com WASHINGTON COUNTY - Feeling morning dew dampen the cuffs of his prison-issued pants and the crisp chill of an early autumn day, Michael Broadway picks through Roxbury Correctional Institution's apple orchard and has a sense of freedom. Broadway was among a handful of Maryland Correctional Training Center prerelease inmates who picked Red Delicious apples Tuesday at an orchard just outside the Roxbury Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison set off from two others on Roxbury Road off Sharpsburg Pike.

martinsburg@herald-mail.com MARLOWE, W.VA. - More than 50 years ago in a small West Virginia town called Marlowe, there lived a boy named Cecil Foltz. Like most boys of that era, Cecil had a fondness for apples. Lulled by an orchard next to his school, Cecil one day stole an apple from a tree. Promptly caught, he was ushered into the principal's office. Rather than face the administrator's wrath, Cecil, 12 or 13 years old, hopped out the principal's office window - a second-floor window - and slid down a flagpole.

waynesboro@herald-mail.com The owners of a 78-acre working farm that has been in the same family since 1816 say they will fight an attempt to take by eminent domain the land that lies in the path of a planned seven-mile bypass around Washington Township. The Washington Township Supervisors voted Monday to authorize their attorney to start the legal process to take the 187-year-old Shank Farm owned by Barry G. and Annie R. Pifer of Germantown, Md. "We're going to fight this as best we can," Barry G. Pifer said.

waynesboro@herald-mail.com Ten years ago, anyone driving along U.S. 30 between St. Thomas and Fort Loudon, Pa., would see orchards lining both sides of the highway. Today, said Donald Kessler, director of the Penn State Extension Office in Chambersburg, Pa., the view is open fields. The orchards are gone, mostly because of economics, Kessler said. Growers are not being paid as much as they were a decade ago, while their costs have gone up. Kessler didn't know how many growers have gone out of business or how many are left.

For the third year in a row, Shatzer Fruit Market of Chambersburg earned the Best Fruit Market Display award at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. Fruit entries were judged Friday so ribbons and plaques could be displayed with the fruit at the show's opening Saturday. Winning the prestigious award "is one of our goals each year," said Wilma Mickey, who owns and operates the orchard and market with her husband, Jack, and son, Dwight. "It gives us a good outlook for the new year. "We are so small, it's good to get some publicity," she said.

LEITERSBURG - John R. Martin's peach crop flourished with this season's dry weather, but one day of hail caused widespread crop destruction, he said. Martin plucked pock-marked peaches from a "seconds" basket behind his stand Saturday at the Leitersburg Peach Festival. The ice cube-sized hail that pelted his orchard on June 27 - affecting 75 percent of his crop - left vivid reminders. The hail ripped large chunks of fruit from the seed, leaving long scars and holes on peaches that are now sold at half-price for pies and other baked treats, Martin said.