STATE COLLEGE - The sinkhole on the 500 block of Brittany Drive in Patton Township was recently repaired, but not before it caused extensive road damage and major inconvenience for residents.
Officials said this isn’t the first time this has happened in Centre County and it won’t be the last.
“There’s sinkholes that form every day in Centre County all over the place,” said John Lichman, executive director of the State College Borough Water Authority.
Within about a 10-mile radius of where the Brittany Drive sinkhole collapsed, there are dozens more that could cause the same damage.
But, how does a sinkhole form and why is it such a huge problem in Centre County specifically?
Experts said it’s a problem that dates back millions of years.
"Nittany Valley and the Spring Creek Watershed is underlain by carbonate bedrock. So, that's limestone and dolomite, that was deposited 500 million years ago," said David Yoxtheimer, a hydrogeologist at Penn State University.
Over time, acidity from rain creates fractures in the bedrock, which erodes the soil.
"Slowly, you build up a void in the subsurface that you might not be able to detect until you have a collapse at the surface," said Yoxtheimer.
Today, there’s new technology that can detect potential problems before you build.
However, much of the State College-area was built before that was available.
"All of our infrastructure is aging and we all have to work together to fix this because it doesn't matter whether it's my line that breaks, their line that breaks, one of our lines are going to go,” said Lichman. “So as soon as we repair our old infrastructure, and get it up to standard then we don't have to worry as much about these sink holes.”
Until that happens, engineers said they just have to deal with these sinkholes on a case-by-case basis and make sure new construction sites are properly analyzed.
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