A recent letter to the editor in the The Scranton Times-Tribune by Gary Duncan reinforces the questions that logically arise around the landfill's request to send up to 200,000 gallons of leachate a day into our waters: What's the technology? will the public be informed? Will the public have a chance to ask questions? Why so much? What are the potential downstream impacts?
Thanks for voicing these questions, Gary.
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Editor: Regarding the Aug. 5 Times-Tribune editorial on Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s request to dump up to 200,000 gallons daily of wastewater into the Little Roaring Brook (“Send dump’s water to sewer plant”), the proposal may be the most preposterous request ever made by a corporate entity.
As so aptly pointed out in the editorial, Roaring Brook flows into the Lackawanna River before entering the Susquehanna River. That flows into Chesapeake Bay and ultimately, the Atlantic Ocean. The potential amount of leachate that would be dumped equates to an almost unfathomable 73 million gallons of potential contaminants annually.
Part of the Lackawanna River has been designated by the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission as a Class A wild trout stream. In 2018 it was listed in Trout Unlimited’s 100 best trout streams and in 2020, it was named Pennsylvania River of the Year.
I request all our local elected officials, members of Dunmore Borough Council and the mayor, along with our three county commissioners — one of whom is from Dunmore — along with state Sen. Marty Flynn, a resident of Dunmore; 112th District state Rep. Kyle Mullins, U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, to contact the state Department of Environmental Protection.
They should demand that until the public has a clear understanding of “reverse osmosis” and a public hearing is held, that no approval of a leachate dump of 200,000 gallons per day from the landfill should be considered.
If our elected officials cannot do that for their constituents, how can they possibly ask us to vote for them in November?
GARY DUNCAN
DUNMORE