In this article published on November 13th, Kyle Wind reports that the State Environmental Hearing Board declined to rescind Keystone Sanitary Landfill's operating permit. However, they are requiring KSL to conduct a groundwater assessment plan in response to contamination picked up by a monitoring well for the past 15 years. This decision can be seen as both a win and a loss for both sides. The biggest take away for Friends of Lackawanna is the confirmation of our complaints that the DEP has been guilty of vast oversight when it comes to regulating actions of KSL. Perhaps the most criticism of the DEP came from Judge Bernard Labuskes Jr., who in the written adjudication of FOL's appeal wrote:

"The department relies on formal, memorialized violations in conducting its review....but the department, with rare exceptions, never memorializes an of Keystone's violations. The department has guidance documents that require its personnel to record violations even if the violations are minor and/or corrected. The department ignored these guidance documents with respect to Keystone."

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