The Carbon County Lion/Lioness Fair Association encountered a second continuance with the Lower Towamensing Township Zoning Hearing Board Tuesday night.

The association met with the board to discuss two variances involving easements and plans to subdivide the more than 680 acres it owns near Little Gap Road in Palmerton.The lots would be sold to give the fair association money to improve the fairgrounds.Following a lengthy recess, zoning hearing board Chairman James Ord broke the news to Robert Silliman, president of the fair association, and Michael Muffley, an engineer for the association who works for Hanover Engineering in Bartonsville."We are having trouble coming to a positive decision," Ord said.The hang-up is the ambiguous language in the easement agreement between the fair association and Stoney Ridge Materials, and the easement with AMPAL if the fair association should someday decide to sell the land.Holly Heintzelman, the solicitor for the zoning hearing board, said her interpretation of the easement agreement with AMPAL is that the easement does not exist if the land should be sold.The problem with the second easement is in the deed. The easement utilizes a paved driveway on the property of Stoney Ridge Materials, formerly owned by the Horsehead Corp. and the New Jersey Zinc Co. before that. The driveway is currently being used by Stoney Ridge and the state Environmental Protection Agency to access an area being remediated by the EPA.Ord said the board needs the fair association to track down the actual deeds and discover who owns the property, so that clear easements can be created."That language is a bit ambiguous," he said.Muffley told the board that the descriptions of the land in the deeds are vague. He's not sure if more information exists.Ord said that board's decision will affect future potential owners of the land who will want to have access to the lots if the land is subdivided."This could be a problem in somebody's court in 15 years," he said.The planThe fair association wants to create three lots. One would be about 41 acres for the new fairgrounds. The more than 600 acres of mountainside would be divided into two lots with one of them being the area under remediation and the other to be put up for sale. The driveway through Stoney Ridge would provide access to both lots.Ord suggested to Silliman that the fair association should consider making the mountainside one lot and see if the park service would be interested in purchasing it.Silliman said he had a buyer for Lot 2, but the buyer wouldn't take the lot if it was connected to Lot 1, which is the area being remediated by the EPA. The buyer has since found another piece of land and is no longer interested.Muffley said the EPA told the fair association that once the land is subdivided, then it would decide if Lot 2 (the mountainside) and Lot 3 (the fair grounds) would be taken off the list of Superfund sites.On Monday, Silliman said he hoped selling Lot 2 would provide enough income for the fair association to build some structures, and pave a meandering walkway through the new fairgrounds and parking lots on each side of the fairgrounds. He thinks the walkway would make it easier for people with limited mobility to get around and would reduce the distance visitors would have to walk from their vehicles.Right now, the fair association leases land from Blue Mountain Resort.Silliman said the Lions/Lioness Club brought back the Carbon County Fair in 2000 in order to promote agriculture and give the children a place to show their animals to the public. The prior fair closed in 1992."We started it for the benefit of the kids," he said. They could compete in competitions, but these are closed to the public. "No one else could see their animals."The date of the next zoning hearing meeting will be determined once the deed information can be located. Muffley said he is not certain how long it will take the legal department to find the information.