In today's Letters to the Editor in The Scranton Times-Tribune, FOL's Michele Dempsey commends Scranton and Dunmore Councils for their anti-expansion support and highlights the paradigm shift happening in NEPA as more and more are demanding better than the status quo. Well done Michele!

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Halt landfill plan

Editor: As a founding member of Friends of Lackawanna, I commend members of Scranton City Council for their excellent letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in strong opposition to the proposed expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill.

I also commend members of Dunmore Borough Council for unanimously voting during their May 11 meeting to send a letter to the DEP opposing the expansion. This is a positive sign of the paradigm shift happening in this area as we look toward a brighter, healthier future and believe we can be a successful, thriving community that deserves better.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us how precious and fragile our health is. We must protect it at all costs. Friends of Lackawanna has proven that the landfill poses a threat to the health and safety of our community. If the expansion happens, we will not have to quarantine ourselves because citizens will simply leave or not move here.

Unfortunately, action by DEP officials flew in the face of common sense last July when they claimed the benefits of the landfill — money — outweighs the harms — our health and safety. They gave the landfill a pass on its environmental assessment. Now, DEP officials are doing the technical review to determine if the massive landfill structure is technically sound because there are extreme dangers to the area if anything goes wrong.

If they pass, an additional 188 billion pounds of waste, mostly from New York and New Jersey, will be dumped in our community, compromising our health and safety irreparably.

Citizens can be a hero to our community and voice opposition to this threat to our future by submitting comments to Roger Bellas, DEP Northeast Regional Office, 2 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701, or email him at rbellas@pa.gov by June 30 at 4 p.m.

MICHELE DEMPSEY

SCRANTON