The Scranton Times Editorial Board nails it once again!
Let Sierra Club intervene in landfill case
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD Dec 22, 2021
The Keystone Sanitary Landfill pretty much has had its way with state regulators regarding its unfolding effort to construct a massive mountain of trash in the middle of Lackawanna County. It’s crucial for the sake of the state government’s credibility that the Environmental Hearing Board does not repeat the state Department of Environmental Protection’s mistake.
Keystone plans to expand the already-massive landfill by accepting another 94 million tons of mostly out-of-state garbage over the next 40 years. Incredibly, the DEP belied its own name by signing off in June on this abomination, finding that, overall, it would benefit Northeast Pennsylvania.
The antilandfill citizens’ group Friends of Lackawanna appealed the DEP’s wayward decision to the Environmental Hearing Board, an independent administrative body that reviews DEP’s regulatory decisions when they are challenged.
Now the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group with more than 32,000 Pennsylvanians among its 800,000-plus members nationwide, has petitioned the Environmental Hearing Board to join Friends of Lackawanna in the appeal.
The national group’s interest in joining the case reflects the enormity of the landfill project and the environmental issues that were glossed over by the DEP. Its testimony would include whether the DEP’s harm/benefit analysis of the expansion was flawed, the effects of landfill effluent known as leachate on surface water and groundwater, and whether the landfill has met its compliance burden of proving that the expansion comports with regional residents’ right, under the state constitution, to clean air and water.
The landfill company wants to preclude the Sierra Club’s involvement or severely limit the scope of its testimony. The DEP, remarkably, also wants to limit the scope the Sierra Club’s potential testimony.
The DEP has a checkered history regarding its duty to protect the public interest regarding the landfill, at one point failing to detect noxious odors from the landfill that were obvious to anyone with a nose.
Ideally, the Environmental Hearing Board will better recognize the public interest, beginning with allowing the Sierra Club’s involvement in the Friends of Lackawanna appeal.