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More than 100 people turned out Tuesday night to listen to a presentation by The Rail Road Action and Advisory Committee (TRRAAC), a local group created to fight the proposed relocation of the Dillerville rail yard and to find alternative sites.

John Fry, president of F&M, said insinuations have been made that conflicts of interest have marred the more-than-$40-million project because private entities are working with state and federal agencies.

"We're trying to go by the letter of the law, because we understand the level of scrutiny people are putting on this project — and so be it," Fry said. "So what we're trying to do is measure up and make sure that we've done everything in the right way."

Keith Orris, F&M's vice president for external affairs, said the college met with representatives of TRRAAC before the June public meeting to discuss the group's proposals for different locations for the rail yard.

Orris said F&M had its engineer, Gannett Fleming, explain why TRRAAC's proposed alternatives, which include expanding north onto property owned by RR Donnelley or two other locations near campus, would not work. Orris said the proposed sites would not have the efficiencies and capacities needed by Norfolk Southern.

Fry said he called a representative from Donnelley and asked if, hypothetically, some of the land could be sold and used as a rail yard. He said a representative of the company told him no.

Orris said the other sites TRRAAC suggested pose significant safety concerns that Norfolk Southern would never accept because the tracks would be too close together.

Fry and Orris talked about the asbestos cleanup that will take place at the 12-acre former Lancaster Brickyard dump at the rear of the U.S. post office along Harrisburg Pike. Armstrong World Industries Inc. dumped waste at the site from 1957 to 1962, including floor tiling containing asbestos.

Gary Brown, an environmental engineer hired by TRRAAC to review the project, said Tuesday that insufficient sampling of asbestos was done at the dump site by ARM, a Hershey-based environmental consultant hired by F&M.

Twelve samples of flooring waste were taken at the site, Orris said, and of those, two came back positive for asbestos. However, Orris said, the samples were not "friable," meaning they were not brittle and likely to produce air-borne, potentially cancer-causing asbestos fibers.

Orris said the state Department of Environmental Protection's Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act (Act 2) doesn't address asbestos sampling or remediation of the toxic substance.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety & Health Administration are responsible for asbestos remediation, Orris said, and have specific protocols and regulations that govern its removal.

F&M received DEP's approval for cleanup at the site on Oct. 3.

"The number of samples we have taken is obviously enough to meet the standards for securing approval on a plan," Orris said.

The F&M official's biggest complaint about Tuesday's meeting was a statement made by Bill Cluck, an environmental lawyer for TRRAAC.

Cluck called attention to a document titled "Preliminary Assessment for Lancaster Brickyard Dump," a 1987 assessment done by the state Department of Environmental Resources, the forerunner of DEP, to determine if the land qualified as a Superfund Site.

The report pointed out two inspections at the site in March 1987 that found "recent shallow excavation and evidence of recent dumping from class III demolition waste."

The report goes on to state that "Franklin & Marshall College has been dumping waste building materials in this area."

Cluck said the document is important because it shows dumping took place after it was supposedly stopped in 1962, thereby making the project ineligible for liability protection for its cleanup.

However, the document is talking about land south of the railroad tracks owned by F&M — not the same site proposed for the rail yard, which is north of the tracks.

A hand-drawn map included in the report clearly shows the location being discussed is south of the railroad tracks.

Orris said a cursory review of the document shows it is not the same site F&M has been talking about publicly for three years. He said Cluck "misrepresented in a major way a piece of inherent information."

"(TRRAAC) have so discredited themselves in our belief that anything they do from here on out has to be met with immediate disbelief and skepticism," Orris said.

"They're really after a means of killing this project, and their goal is to keep it out of their backyard."

E-mail: myoder@lnpnews.com