In today's The Scranton Times-Tribune Op-Ed, FOL's Pat Clark makes the case: one of the Biden Plan's main goals is Environmental Justice. If our country is going to give EJ the seat at the table it has long deserved, the KSL expansion is the perfect proving ground. The landfill's expansion, in a designated Environmental Justice area, on Biden's hometown turf, must be denied.
"...there is no better place to start than the president’s hometown. Locals often joke that all roads lead to Scranton. With the inevitable spotlight presidential attention will bring, let’s hope those roads aren’t filled with garbage trucks for the next 40 years."
https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_4f85dc8c...
Proposed landfill expansion an environmental injustice
BY PATRICK CLARK GUEST COLUMNIST
If you want something done, ask a busy person. If you want to locate or expand a polluting business, ask a community already filled with them. Benjamin Franklin is known for one of those quotes. The other has plagued our region for decades.
Environmental justice embodies the principle that minority and low-income communities shoulder a disproportionate burden caused by pollution. Over time, the cumulative impact of concentrated pollution destroys a community’s economic outlook and health profile.
Thirty years after the birth of the environmental justice movement, Northeast Pennsylvania faces its own crusade with Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s proposed mega-expansion in a designated environmental justice area.
However, with the election of President-elect Joe Biden, this expansion is no longer just a local or state issue. It is now a national issue.
Biden’s connection to Scranton is well-established. He grew up on North Washington Avenue, less than two miles from the landfill as the crow flies. Though that proximity is an interesting geographic tie to the landfill, his incoming administration’s stated policy on environmental justice inexorably binds the two together.
Biden’s plan on environmental justice recognizes “that communities of color and low-income communities have faced disproportionate harm from climate change and environmental contaminants for decades.” Its goal is “to clean up our communities and provide new opportunities to those that have been disproportionately burdened by pollution.” The landfill’s proposed expansion, in an environmental justice area next to Biden’s hometown, is the perfect case to highlight his new policy objectives.
Over the past 30 years, Keystone has accepted more than 30 million tons of garbage. It now seeks a permit to expand its lifespan by 40 more years and bury 100 million new tons of trash. What is already one of the largest landfills in the nation seeks to triple in size; a previously unheard-of request for the state given the landfill’s already enormous size and proximity to homes, schools and parks.
The landfill is in an environmental justice area as defined by Pennsylvania due to a concentration of low-income population surrounding it. Residents of Northeast Pennsylvania, led by Friends of Lackawanna, have fought this expansion since day one, including presentations and meetings with environmental justice agencies. The Pennsylvania Office of Environmental Justice has noble goals, stating on its website that, “environmental justice ensures that everyone has an equal seat at the table.” Unfortunately, to date, those goals are mere words, not results.
It is expected that Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection will issue its decision on the landfill’s expansion request in early 2021. Since the proposal’s submission in 2014, the only thing growing faster than the mountain of trash are the documented reasons to deny it: ongoing groundwater pollution issues, air contaminants, subsurface fires, radioactive fracking waste, leachate spills and other issues.
What has also transpired since the original submission is a renewed focus on state-level environmental initiatives. In September, New Jersey passed one of the nation’s strongest environmental justice laws. It grants regulators the right to review cumulative impacts on public health or environmental risks based on “combined past, present and reasonably foreseeable” future pollution. In October, Connecticut strengthened its regulations.
Pennsylvania is also considering doing the same and the change is badly needed. The state’s current approach to environmental justice is informational and advisory only — no action, only talk.
We already import more garbage than any state and more than 60% of Keystone’s waste comes from out of state. As the environmental justice movement grows, so too will the list of states adopting progressive measures. If Pennsylvania does not match our neighbors, our self-defeating lead in imports will not end at trash — we’ll simply become the state that imports pollution.
Weeks before the DEP is scheduled to make its final decision on the landfill expansion, Biden will be sworn in as the next president.
One of the largest decisions his hometown region will ever face, impacting multiple generations, is the expansion of the landfill. A denial of this expansion will showcase the momentum of the environmental justice movement at large and directly supports the Biden plan’s goals. Conversely, allowing this expansion would mark this environmental justice area as another sad, cautionary tale where help came too little, too late.
If the country is going to give environmental justice the seat at the table it deserves and the incoming administration follow through on its stated goals in that respect, there is no better place to start than the president’s hometown. Locals often joke that all roads lead to Scranton. With the inevitable spotlight presidential attention will bring, let’s hope those roads aren’t filled with garbage trucks for the next 40 years.