Today's Op-ed by FOL's Pat Clark is on the upcoming DEP decision and the deja vu inducing prioritization of money over all else. As you will read, last month's Grand Jury report echoes, almost exactly, what we have experienced with how the DEP has looked at this landfill expansion proposal.
"By rejecting Keystone’s proposed landfill expansion, DEP has an opportunity to salvage any credibility which this agency may have once enjoyed before it became so marred with a reputation of serving at the behest of industry, the rich and the politically connected. It has one final opportunity to fulfill its constitutional duties and stick up for the people of Northeast Pennsylvania, including generations yet to come."
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Reports detail money's impact on environmental policy
By PATRICK CLARK GUEST COLUMNIST
Studies estimate that approximately two-thirds of people have experienced dèjá vu. Translated, the French term means “already seen” and it is best described as the feeling you get as though you have been somewhere before or have an overwhelming sense of familiarity with something new. It is a common, almost always harmless, experience, except when reading a grand jury report involving the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
In late June, a Pennsylvania grand jury report was made public. It resulted from a two-year investigation centered on the DEP’s oversight of the natural gas fracking industry. If one simply replaced “fracking” with “landfill,” it is eerily similar to a November 2017 ruling by another independent body, the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board, which evaluated how the DEP regulates Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore and Throop.
Fracking and waste disposal are massive, powerful industries in Pennsylvania. Since fracking’s emergence, Pennsylvania has consistently ranked toward the top of the U.S. “unconventional oil and gas industry.” When it comes to trash, Pennsylvania historically imports more waste than any other state. Strong, environmentally destructive industries require stronger regulatory agencies to protect the public. Though the DEP’s stated mission is to do so, it has failed woefully.
The grand jury fracking report concluded that “...officials did not do enough to properly protect the health, safety and welfare of the thousands of Pennsylvania citizens who were affected by this industry” and that “government institutions often failed in their constitutional duty to act as a trustee and guardian ‘of all the people,’ as Article 1, Section 27 [of the Pennsylvania Constitution] provides” and “We believe some DEP employees saw the job more as serving the industry than the public.”
Oversight lagging
The nearly identical 2017 Environmental Hearing Board Ruling passage found that DEP has not “consistently exercised vigorous oversight of the landfill consistent with its regulatory and constitutional responsibilities with just as much concern about the rights of the landfill’s neighbors as the rights of the landfill.”
Further, the grand jury report found that “DEP employees often elected not to inspect reported violations... And even in cases where investigation did show that a violation had occurred, and that ground water had been tainted... DEP employees chose not notify unsuspecting neighboring landowners, who would have no way of knowing there was a problem.”
The mirror section in the 2017 Environmental Hearing Board: “the biggest deficiency with the Department’s review [of Keystone’s compliance history] was that it relied almost entirely on recorded violations, yet the department almost never records any violations at Keystone, even if they undeniably occurred.”
The parallels do not stop at the nearly identical written conclusions. Both reference an unexplained lack of notice of violations at the offending companies. Both discuss the lack of underlying historical health data. Both reference the location of offending facilities being in close proximity to residential areas, not “out-of-the-way industrial parks.”
Perhaps the most damning similarity comparing Keystone’s expansion proposal and the 2020 grand jury report is, unsurprisingly, the impact of money on environmental decisions.
Revenue was priority
The grand jury report states, “...we believe that our government often ignored the costs to the environment and to the health and safety of the citizens of the commonwealth, in a rush to reap the benefits of this industry.”
In the DEP’s harms-benefits analysis of the proposed landfill expansion, the DEP concluded that there is not a single environmental benefit, only environmental harms. And every “social and economic benefit” is financial in nature. Yet, on balance, the DEP still found that “the identified benefits of the project clearly outweigh the remaining known and potential harms of the project.” Another way to read that is “money outweighs our environment, health and safety.”
Finally, to connect the remaining dots of these intertwined Pennsylvania cash cows, where does some of the toxic waste from the fracking industry the Grand Jury denounces ultimately reside? Buried in the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, of course.
Dèjá vu isn’t typically something to worry about. Except when it is. Except when it involves repeated condemnations by independent arbiters of the agency in charge of protecting both our citizens and our environment. The DEP has not rendered its final decisions on the landfill’s expansion request, but it will do so shortly. By rejecting Keystone’s proposed landfill expansion, DEP has an opportunity to salvage any credibility which this agency may have once enjoyed before it became so marred with a reputation of serving at the behest of industry, the rich and the politically connected. It has one final opportunity to fulfill its constitutional duties and stick up for the people of Northeast Pennsylvania, including generations yet to come.
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