Keystone Sanitary Landfill wants to treat its own leachate (toxic garbage juice) and release it directly into Eddy’s Creek and Little Roaring Brook so the Landfill can save money. As the Times Tribune Editorial Board points out in another spot on article, this puts our water quality at the mercy of the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and “Dunmore voters already have expressed their skepticism at the ballot box regarding the government’s ability, or willingness, to guard the public interest over the landfill’s interests.”
https://m.thetimes-tribune.com/.../caution-due-on...
Caution due on landfill’s water plans
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: DECEMBER 27, 2019
The state Department of Environmental Protection, which in recent years failed to detect any of the many odors emanating from the Keystone Sanitary Landfill and found that economic “benefits” from the massive dump’s massive expansion would outweigh environmental concerns, has compromised its credibility regarding the landfill.
So skepticism and extreme caution are necessary as the landfill advances a plan to change the treatment of water that flows from the landfill in Dunmore and Throop before it flows into tributaries of the Lackawanna River.
The landfill pretreats the landfill effluent known as leachate before sending it into the Scranton-Dunmore sewer system, operated by Pennsylvania American Water. It is treated as sewage at the system’s treatment plant in South Scranton before being discharged into the Lackawanna River.
Change in treatment plans
Now, the landfill has asked the DEP for permission to increase wastewater treatment at the landfill and release most of the treated water into nearby Eddy Creek and Little Roaring Brook, while using some of it for dust control at the landfill.
According to a landfill spokesman, the method would not reduce the quality of the discharged water that enters the rivers, while reducing the landfill’s treatment costs and the costs of acquiring water for dust control.
Dunmore voters already have expressed their skepticism at the ballot box regarding the government’s ability, or willingness, to guard the public interest over the landfill’s interests.
Those voters have thrown out of office several borough council members who had voted to amend the borough zoning ordinance specifically as requested by the landfill to accommodate its expansion plans.
Treatment of the landfill’s leachate will continue for decades regardless of whether the landfill expands. The DEP must demonstrate to the public that its decision is rooted in the public interest in environmental soundness rather than the landfill’s financial interests alone. That, in turn, requires complete transparency.