OLD FORGE — A Lackawanna County judge made another visit to Walter Stocki Jr.’s junkyard Wednesday in advance of a hearing to decide whether to hold the businessman in contempt for defying orders to cease operations and clean up the site.
Sitting in the front passenger seat of a large white van as it slowly wound its way through the North Keyser Avenue property, Judge Thomas Munley spent 20 minutes inspecting the site, which he last saw during a May 2 visit when he angrily threatened to put Stocki in jail.
After the May inspection, the judge gave Stocki 100 days to get the property cleaned up. He granted the businessman an extra 45 days in September.
Munley left the junkyard Wednesday without commenting, but Stocki’s attorney, Edmund Scacchitti, seemed confident this visit went better than the previous one.
In addition to Stocki and Scacchitti, Old Forge solicitor William Rinaldi and members of the judge’s staff joined Munley in the van during the tour.
“At our invitation, we wanted the court to come down and see what Mr. Stocki has accomplished since he (Munley) gave him a directive with an additional 100 days to get the property cleaned up and organized,” Scacchitti said. “You know the old, ‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ A site visit is probably worth 10,000 words.”
Munley is scheduled to hear arguments Nov. 14 at noon on a request by the borough to hold Stocki in contempt for repeatedly violating the judge’s orders to shut down his business, known as Scrap Enterprises Inc., and clean up the property.
The borough initially went to court in February 2018 to close the operation as an illegal junkyard in violation of the Old Forge zoning ordinance.
From an aesthetic viewpoint, the property appeared markedly different than it did in May. Although nonoperational machines and vehicles are everywhere, most are neatly parked in rows. There seemed to be less haphazardly disassembled and partially disassembled heavy equipment, as well as fewer unattached parts and containers of scrap.
“In our view, anything that would be defined as junk in the borough zoning code does not exist here,” Scacchitti said.
Stocki said the visit also gave Munley a brief look at a nearby property with some of the same supposed zoning issues as his site. However, that property and others like it have not be cited by the borough, he said.
“One of Mr. Stocki’s concerns is he is being singled out,” Scacchitti said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection announced last week that it reached an agreement with Stocki that requires him to clean up and properly dispose of spills on his property, along with solid waste such as tires and construction or demolition debris.
Under the agreement, Stocki must pay a $75,000 civil penalty but will be eligible for a $25,000 credit for petroleum contamination cleanup costs, which would reduce the penalty to $50,000.
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dsingleton@timesshamrock.com, 570-348-9132