Bob, we will aim true to bring down Goliath and save our area. We welcome your voice from today’s Letter to the Editor. Thank you!

David v. Goliath

Editor: When I heard Michele Dempsey from Friends of Lackawanna on a local talk radio program speaking about the group’s opposition to the proposed expansion of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, I gave her credit for her passion but didn’t give her group a chance in succeeding.

I have been around long enough to have watched Louis DeNaples get everything he sets his sights on, often to the detriment of the region. You can see his usual proponents lining up to support what will be yet another black eye for the region.

Mr. DeNaples is an astute businessman who worked his way up from a very humble beginning. He has created hundreds of jobs in an area that is a perennial employment loser.

Any good coming out of an expansion of the landfill will be far overshadowed by the negative effects. The fatal flaws of the landfill are well-documented from the honeycomb of mines underneath to the flocks of seagulls and wintering crows and the radioactive gas drilling waste used to blanket each day’s fresh layer of predominantly out-of-state trash.

For decades, people who traveled through our area on the interstates remembered one thing about the Scranton area: the giant DeNaples junkyard along I-81. Do we want to add a mountain of trash as another landmark?

We need landfills and junkyards, but do they have to be in our neighborhoods? Do they have to be the most visible reminder of our area and who we are as a people?

I realize how important this battle is for the soul of our area and I add one more voice to the groundswell of opposition. I know it is an uphill fight, but so it was for David and his battle with Goliath.

BOB SHUMAKER

SCRANTON

http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor-12-21-2014-1.1805945