Down River

By John Lipez

By the Numbers:

2 – As in the number of people who founded Croda Inc. in Great Britain in 1925. We bring this up as Chris Barnett, the site manager for Croda’s ongoing expansion in Lamar Township (see story elsewhere in this section on that), shared an interesting anecdote on how the name Croda came to be, this while speaking at the annual Clinton County Economic Partnership dinner last week.

You might have thought Croda was the town where the company first set up or, not knowing of the company’s English origins, thought perhaps Croda was an old Indian name for Draketown, the quaint little hillside mini-village on the south side of Croda’s existing facility in Bald Eagle Township.

You’d be wrong. Site manager Barnett told the CCEP assemblage the name came from the company’s two founders, George William Crowe and Henry James Dawe. True story; you can look it up. 

125 – The number of miles from Danville to Hollidaysburg. This one is for the officials from the Danville school district who recently bemoaned the distance the Danville Ironmen had to travel to participate in athletic contests with Central Mountain, 58 miles away.

Dear Danville administrators/school board members: you might want to touch base with your athletic director about the trip the Ironman football team had to make last Friday: to Hollidaysburg 125 miles and 1 hour 58 minutes southwest of Danville. Is there a watchdog group in Montour County?

300,000 to 400,000 – The number of gallons of water unaccounted for daily in Lock Haven’s water system. That revelation came last week as representatives from the city, the Suburban Water Authority and the Central Clinton County Water Filtration Authority had an orderly and productive meeting on the city’s ongoing implementation of a water well hook-up to address the low water levels in Lock Haven’s Ohl and Keller reservoirs.

No one had an answer on what caused city system water usage to surge some 300,000 to 400,000 gallons a day ever since the end of July, according to information from the operators of the water filtration plant. As a result, the city system is using 3.2 million gallons a day, even with its emergency declaration in effect.

City Manager Greg Wilson told The Record the city system is plagued with leaks, but repairs are carried out as soon as found. He said there have been 60-some leaks since March, including six in one day alone recently. It was noted there are cast iron pipes as much as 130 years old in the city system.

Let’s hope someone can figure out what the problem is and correct it, come low or high water.

2,625 – The final headcount for fall enrollment at Commonwealth University – Lock Haven. That number comes in a couple hundred less than the 2,800 or so students CU President Bashar Hanna indicated last year was needed to keep the local school solvent. 

On the bright side, the LH figures were part of an overall 11,160 students within the Commonwealth U system which also includes 7,209 at Bloomsburg and 1,326 at Mansfield; the grand total is a significant increase over a year ago. It includes 537 first-year enrollees at Lock Haven.

  First-time enrollment for the three schools was up 11.8 percent. This compares to less than glowing numbers for the state system’s other schools consolidated, those of Clarion, Edinboro and California. They’re called PennWEST and first-time enrollment there fell by over 20 percent. That’s a problem.

5 – The number of wins the Phillies still need to claim the 2023 World Series title.

Never mind.