The Landfill's expansion was selected as the region's top news story of 2021 by The Scranton Times-Tribune.
This expansion is more than the story of any single year - it will impact Northeastern Pennsylvania for generations to come.
As you know, we are appealing the DEP's decision and continue to believe, as the article states, this process and decision has been "a total failure by DEP and the state on every level.”
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Keystone landfill expansion leads top stories of 2021
BY DAVID SINGLETON STAFF WRITER
The decision, in the end, came as little surprise.
When the state Department of Environmental Protection announced it had approved the expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill, it seemed like everyone already understood the pros and the cons. Most also anticipated which position DEP would take.
Among non-COVID-19-related stories, the approval of Keystone’s expansion was the choice as Northeast Pennsylvania’s top news story of 2021 in voting by The Sunday Times news staff.
It topped the arrest and conviction of former Old Forge School Director Frank Scavo for his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
1. Keystone expansion approved
A process that dragged on for seven years culminated in June when Keystone Sanitary Landfill won approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection to expand.
The effects of that controversial decision will last considerably longer.
In granting the major permit modification that owners Louis and Dominick DeNaples originally sought for Keystone’s Phase III expansion in 2014, DEP gave the landfill a green light to continue accepting waste for four more decades.
The agency concluded the benefits of the expansion, many of them financial, “clearly outweigh the known and potential harms.”
The decision will allow the landfill in Dunmore and Throop, which has already been operating for 42 years, to increase its capacity to accept an additional 94 million tons of refuse through 2060.
The decision dismayed expansion opponents.
A spokesman for Friends of Lackawanna, a civic group that fought against the expansion, branded the approval “a total failure by DEP and the state on every level.”
The organization appealed DEP’s decision to the state Environmental Hearing Board.
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