As Richard Yost's letter to the editor concludes, "We don’t want to be the dumping ground of the East Coast."

Full letter below titled "Optimism aired on landfill limits"

**************

Editor: If environmental degradation may not be so noticeable, a growing stench certainly can be.

It is a most serious matter because it isn’t going to get any better — not with an almost 40-year proposed expansion at Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore and Throop.

Although some admire landfill owner Louis DeNaples as the ultimate “rags to riches” success story, the landfill takes a toll on Northeast Pennsylvania in terms of the quality of its air, soil and water. People increasingly recognize this as a lower quality of life even as it affects property values. It is the bottom line of a business philosophy that prizes profit over people.

Help may be on the way. Newly elected Gov. Josh Shapiro was an effective prosecutor as the two-term state attorney general. His background equips him to direct the Department of Environmental Protection to actually protect the environment.

The DEP clamors for funding and Shapiro may want the agency to prove its worth. At the same time he seems to be in sympathy with the Trash Reduction and Sensible Handling Act, legislation sponsored by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, of Moosic. The bill would give states more control over the garbage imported by landfills in their jurisdictions.

Both members of Congress have made the point that much of the garbage in the landfill –— up to two-thirds of it — comes from New Jersey and New York.

We don’t want to be the dumping ground of the East Coast.