WNEP coverage of the absurd outcome of the Dunmore Council meeting last night in which 4 members voted to allow KSL to be able to grow as high as they want by changing the Dunmore Zoning Ordinance to say landfills are not structures and, therefore, not subject to the height restrictions in the Ordinance (50 feet). Two of these Council members, Michael Hayes and Michael McHale, actually ran on an election platform in opposition to the landfill then sold the community down the river at the very moment their vote counted most.
Watch Pat Clark School Dunmore Council
https://www.facebook.com/friendsoflackawanna/videos/429987510969518/
This is what speaking truth to power looks like. Pat Clark addresses the misconceptions and threats that Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s lawyers and consultants put forth at the Dunmore Council meeting. Despite Pat’s intelligent and logical testimony that made it abundantly clear that Council should not accept the ordinance change or take no action and let the issue play out in court, 4 Council members (Michael Hayes, Michael McHale, Carol Scrimalli and Tom Ehnot) still chose to act in the best interest of one man over the best interest of the community they took an oath to serve.
4 Dunmore Council Members decide Landfill is a Structure
View Video of Council Meeting: https://www.facebook.com/friendsoflackawanna/videos/393500501333720/
and then the vote
https://www.facebook.com/friendsoflackawanna/videos/1474170469402280/
If the 4 Council members (Michael Hayes, Michael McHale, Tom Ehnot and Carol Scrimalli) who voted in the interest of one person rather than the community weren’t swayed by this testimony—then they have no heart along with no backbone.
Molly Callahan’s son, Jack, fought and recently beat a very rare form of leukemia. Tonight Molly pleaded with Council to make the choice that would give our “amazing community” the best chance for a healthy future.
Excerpt:
“What will changing these laws do for our kids and their kids future? Will they choose to stay here like we did? Will they feel as lucky as I do to live here? Or will they move away for fear of their health and their wellness? Will they be known as the town that did anything for their neighbor or as the town next to a giant mountain of garbage? This is an easy decision.”
Structure of an engaged community
Today's The Scranton Times-Tribune Editorial titled "Structure of an engaged community" is worth your time. Please read it. And let your voice be heard tonight at 6pm at the Dunmore Community Center. The always creative John Cole (Coletoons - John Cole political cartoons) cartoon accompanies this post.
*******************
Structure of an engaged community
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
Dunmoreans have an opportunity this evening to warn their elected government against acting as an agent for a powerful private interest. They should not waste it.
Borough council will conduct a public hearing at 6 p.m. in the Dunmore Community Center, 1414 Monroe Ave., on whether it should redefine a key element of the zoning ordinance to suit the Keystone Sanitary Landfill.
The giant landfill plans to become exponentially larger under a four-decade expansion plan that would result in more than 100 million tons of additional garbage, mostly from out-of-state, being deposited in the landfill.
But the plan has run afoul of the borough’s own zoning ordinance, which precludes structures higher than 50 feet in manufacturing zones such as that encompassing the landfill, and of a state appellate court precedent upholding such a prohibition regarding another landfill in Mercer County.
Under the landfill’s plan, it would far exceed the “structure” height restriction. And, since a state appellate court already has ruled the Mercer County landfill is a structure, Keystone is not likely to get around that precedent in its own case pending before the same court.
So it wants Dunmore’s council to rewrite the zoning ordinance to state specifically that a landfill is not a structure.
The ordinance says a “structure” is anything “constructed or erected, the use of which requires location on the ground or attachment to something having a fixed location on the ground.”
Keystone is a highly engineered structure, including complex high-tech collection systems for gas and wastewater, a wastewater treatment plant, passive environmental controls such as liners, monitoring equipment and so on. It is far from a pile of garbage, so much so that the landfill management is justly proud of being the first in the nation to achieve ISO 140001 certification from the International Standards Organization, which it has maintained since 2001.
The borough planning commission recently rolled over for the landfill and recommended, 3-2, that council amend the ordinance and redefine “structure” to meet the landfill’s needs.
Tonight, borough residents should advise council to send that recommendation itself to the landfill for disposal. They should insist that council serve the public interest by maintaining the definition of “structure” and recognizing that the landfill meets it.
CHRIS KELLY: A flimsy argument
A great column by Christopher J. Kelly in the The Scranton Times-Tribune today. Link and full article below.
"The real question for council is not whether the landfill is a structure, but whether the political power structure will continue to serve the profits of one wealthy man, or finally protect the interests of a public that doesn’t deserve to be dumped on for generations to come."
The current Dunmore Council consists of:
-- Michael Dempsey
-- Carol Scrimalli
-- Michael McHale
-- Michael Hayes
-- Thomas Ehnot
-- Vincent Amico
-- Thomas Hallinan
They will decide this matter. We trust they will do what is right for the future of the Borough and as Kelly states in his column, "Dunmore Borough Council meets Thursday to either affirm or debase the legal meaning of the word in a decision that may define and defile the borough and Northeast Pennsylvania for generations."
CHRIS KELLY: A flimsy argument
KELLY'S WORLD / PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 15, 2019
Structure: (noun) Something built or constructed, as a building, bridge, or dam. Power structure: (noun) An elite group constituted by people holding influential positions within a government, society, or organization.
— Both definitions from
Dictionary.com
The word of the week is “structure.”
Dunmore Borough Council meets Thursday to either affirm or debase the legal meaning of the word in a decision that may define and defile the borough and Northeast Pennsylvania for generations.
The immediate question before council is as absurd as it is academic: Is a landfill — designed by architects, supported by an elaborate, meticulously engineered framework and built in layers from the ground up — a structure?
The answer is key to the proposed 46-year expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill. The current zoning ordinance prohibits structures higher than 50 feet. Keystone owner Louis DeNaples wants to pile a mountain of mostly imported trash more than three times higher.
If his landfill is a structure, DeNaples can’t build it. A 2014 Commonwealth Court ruling on a Mercer County case says landfills are structures and subject to zoning as such.
That precedent clearly favors the legal challenge of expansion opponents, so DeNaples and his attorneys have leaned on borough officials to remove this obstacle by erasing a distinction Keystone officials have long cited in defense of the dump.
The dump is not a dump, they object. It’s a state-of-the-art facility that relies on complex technology and employs hundreds of local taxpayers. Calling Keystone a dump is like calling a Ferrari an oxcart. Keystone is the Trump Tower of landfills, but don’t dare call it a structure.
This preposterous double standard has served Keystone’s interests at the expense of its neighbors for decades. In February 1999, this newspaper reported that the sprawling landfill paid less in property taxes than the Toys R Us store in Dickson City.
Taxed as undeveloped land, Keystone’s property became vastly more valuable after the state Department of Transportation took 122 acres for construction of the Casey Highway.
The state offered the owners $1 million for the parcel. A Lackawanna County Board of View — a court-appointed board that handles condemnation disputes — ruled that PennDOT owed Keystone a staggering $237 million for the land. In November 2001, the state agreed to a settlement that paid the DeNaples family $41 million in taxpayer cash.
In October 2015, the Dunmore Zoning Board agreed with Keystone’s absurd argument that landfills are not structures. A handful of landfill neighbors and the grassroots group Friends of Lackawanna appealed. In April 2017, after all 12 Lackawanna County judges recused themselves, the state went to its bench for a judge to hear the appeal.
Out of 124 potential judges, the nod just happened to go to Northampton County Senior Judge Leonard N. Zito. As I reported at the time, Zito failed to disclose his past career as a ruthless advocate for the embattled expansion of Grand Central Landfill in Northampton County.
As an attorney for the landfill’s owners, Zito filed lawsuits against municipalities and everyday citizens, including a libel complaint against a woman who wrote a letter to the editor of her local newspaper opposing the expansion.
In April, Zito ruled the neighbors and Friends of Lackawanna lacked legal standing to challenge the expansion and had “failed to demonstrate a direct, immediate and substantial harm” that might result from dumping 100 million more tons of trash at the heart of the valley.
Surprise! Since then, the state Department of Environmental Protection issued an “environmental” assessment of the expansion that downplayed its environmental harms while trumpeting its economic benefits. By a 3-2 vote last week, the Dunmore Planning Commission recommended amending the zoning code in Keystone’s favor.
Council, which has the final word on any amendment, will hold a public hearing Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Dunmore Community Center, 1414 Monroe Ave. If you know a structure when you see one, there will never be a better time to stand up and say so.
The real question for council is not whether the landfill is a structure, but whether the political power structure will continue to serve the profits of one wealthy man, or finally protect the interests of a public that doesn’t deserve to be dumped on for generations to come.
CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, structured this column. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com, @cjkink on Twitter. Read his award-winning blog at times-tribuneblogs.com/kelly.
Got a Spine?
he always creative John Cole (Coletoons - John Cole political cartoons) from this weekend's The Scranton Times-Tribune on the pending zoning issue in Dunmore and Keystone Sanitary Landfill.
There is a Dunmore Council meeting is 9/19/19 to collect public input on this matter. Show up if you want your voice heard.
Dunmore planners roll over
From the Scranton Times-Tribune Editorial Board—a great summary of this week's Dunmore Planning Commission meeting which was the saddest form of local governance one could see.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 8, 2019
A narrow majority of the Dunmore Planning Commission dutifully rolled over Thursday for a powerful private interest at the expense of the public good.
The borough’s zoning law exists to regulate development and protect residents’ property rights and values, and other elements of the public interest, including public health.
But by a 3-2 vote, the craven board majority recommended that the borough government alter its zoning law to suit the needs of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, which is owned by economically and politically powerfully borough resident Louis DeNaples.
The borough zoning law precludes structures over 50 feet high, but the landfill’s expansion plan calls for it to climb several times beyond that limit to accommodate more than 100 million more tons of mostly out-of-state garbage over the next 40 years.
Court precedent stands in way
State appellate courts already have ruled in a case involving a Mercer County landfill that landfills — complex, highly engineered facilities — are indeed structures for the purpose of zoning regulation. It will be difficult for Keystone to overcome that precedent in a case before the Commonwealth Court that has been brought by Dunmore residents who oppose the landfill expansion.
So the landfill has called an end run, relying on lap dog Dunmore politicians to alter the zoning law in its favor by specifically stating that landfills are not structures.
The planning commission’s decision to be the lead blockers on that end run is predictable yet shocking. It is an egregious, bald-faced abandonment of the public interest and the worst sort of special-interest pandering.
But it is just a recommendation. Dunmore Borough Council should find the spine to reject the recommendation or send its integrity to the landfill for permanent disposal.
SYNOPSIS OF CURRENT DECISIONS & LITIGATION
If you are confused about all the decisions and ongoing litigation regarding the potential expansion of the Keystone Sanitary Lanfill (KSL), here is a break down of where we are at now.
We have always had 2 main ways to stop the growth/expansion of this landfill:
1) Would have been for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to say the harms outweigh the benefits, which Friends of Lackawanna clearly proved. However, Governor Tom Wolf did not intervene and the DEP,--an organization that the Environmental Hearing Board said operated more in the interest of KSL than the citizens they are charged to protect--passed the Environmental Assessment Review saying the benefits of the landfill (just money for those keeping track) clearly outweigh the harms.
2) Pennsylvania case law has already determined that modern landfills are structures. Dunmore's Zoning Ordinance explicitly limits the height of structures in the borough to 50 feet. This would essentially limit the height of the landfill so that they could not expand much beyond where they are at today.
So now that the expansion can't be stopped by DEP with the Environmental Review, the best chance is Zoning. Despite the clarity of PA case law, KSL does not want to be considered a structure and KSL and FOL are fighting this in court. KSL is afraid that they will lose because the law is so clear, therefore, they are trying to run an end game around ongoing litigation by having Dunmore Council add an amendment to the Zoning Ordinance saying that a landfill is not a structure.
Dunmore Council ultimately gets to decide if Dunmore accepts the amendment. Before it gets to Council, it must be reviewed by Lackawanna County Regional Planning and the Dunmore Planning Commission. The former declined to support KSL's request. And even though the Dunmore Planning Commission almost never goes against the County and has never changed the ordinance to the singular benefit of one company, last night they voted 4-3 to approved it. Both Planning Boards are advisory so Dunmore Council makes the final decision.
If you care about this issue, please attend the Dunmore Council meeting on September 19th at 6pm at the Dunmore Community Center located at 1414 Monroe Avenue in Dunmore and tell them NOT to accept the proposed amendment to the Zoning Ordinance.
Dunmore panel recommends zoning change that would boost landfill's case for expansion
What do our Board members gain by giving up local control of the height restrictions on Keystone Sanitary Landfill? All the community gains is more trash, health risks and the knowledge that our leaders will "sell us down the river."
Below are the questions FOL asked the Planning Commission last night along with their answers. We can only make our very educated guesses to why 4 members still chose to approve it--Al Senofonte, Thomas Pichiarella, Joseph Pinto and Gerard Michaels.
Should this pass at the level of Dunmore Council--and we have faith it will not--those who voted in favor will FOREVER have their names tied to the decision that compromised the health of their children, grandchildren and posterity and cemented the regions reputation as a dumping ground. History will hold them accountable.
Questions asked by FOL:
1) Does anyone on this board have any financial or business relationship with the owners of the landfill in any way? Answer: No.
2) When is the last time the Planning Commission voted to amend or change the Zoning Code to the singular benefit of one company? Answer: Never.
3) If the Borough adopted this proposed change, isn't it true that in effect, there would be no limit to how high the landfill could grow over time? They would be unregulated in how high it could grow? Answer: Yes.
4) Given that the Lackawanna County Regional Planning Commission has declined to support KSL's request twice, how often does this Planning Commission go against the County recommendations? Answer: Never for all Board Members except Thomas Pichiarella who said once in the 7 years he has served, but couldn't remember what is was.
Excerpts:
DUNMORE — A divided borough planning commission voted Thursday to recommend a zoning amendment that would boost Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s expansion plans.
After listening to arguments from landfill lawyers and its opponents, the commission voted 4 to 3 to recommend amending the zoning ordinance to specifically say landfills aren’t structures. The amendment would allow Keystone, if state regulators approve its expansion, to continue piling trash higher than the 50-foot restriction on structures in the manufacturing zone where the landfill operates.
Commission Chairman Al Senofonte and members Thomas Pichiarella, Joseph Pinto and Gerard Michaels voted yes. Members Elizabeth Zangardi, Gary Duncan and Joe Grochowski voted no.
The argument moves to the borough council, the only body with the power to amend an ordinance. The council is scheduled to host a public hearing Sept. 19 at 6 p.m. at the Dunmore Community Center, 1414 Monroe Ave., Dunmore, according to a legal notice.
Pat Clark, a Friends of Lackawanna member, said the amendment would benefit only one company and argued a previous Commonwealth Court ruling found landfills are structures. The zoning ordinance lists all the uses where height restrictions don’t apply and landfills aren’t among them, he said.
“That’s why we’re here,” Clark said. “Keystone is not here because they think it’s clearly not a structure. They’re here because they’re worried that it is (a structure) and Pennsylvania (court) case law says it is.”
CHRIS KELLY: King of the hill ... of trash
“DEP’s assessment ignores the potential negative economic effects of the [Keystone Sanitary Landfill] expansion, which are tough to calculate in real time but not hard to forecast. How much economic activity — investment, industry, jobs — will be lost when our region is written off as the Trash Capital of the Northeast? Who would want to call such a place home?” — Excerpt from Chris Kelly’s response to Dunmore being the best place to live in PA on a $50K salary (we couldn’t agree with him more)
KELLY: King of the hill ... of trash
KELLY'S WORLD / PUBLISHED: AUGUST 28, 2019
If you earn $50,000 a year, Dunmore is the best place in Pennsylvania to call home, according to Internet bean-counters who have never set foot in Bucktown.
Last week, GOBankingRates.com, a personal finance website akin to WalletHub and NerdWallet, released the results of a “study” ranking each state’s best place to live based on the median U.S. worker salary of about $50,000.
The website’s analysts subtracted cost-of-living expenses and considered “supplemental data” like “livability and amenities.” It costs $30,695 a year to live in Dunmore, the study found. Health care costs are about 9% higher than the national average, but the crime rate is 26% below the national average.
The numbers added up to crown Dunmore king of affordability in the Keystone state. It’s nice to see a neighboring community plucked from obscurity as an attractive example, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether factoring in the proposed 40-plus-year expansion of a mountain of out-of-state trash might have changed the equation.
You’d think that might fall under “livability.”
So I called GOBankingRates spokesman Rob Poindexter, who is based in Bethlehem. As expected, he had never heard of Keystone Sanitary Landfill, or its host communities, Dunmore and Throop.
Rob explained that the study was produced by analysts in Los Angeles. where the website is based. The rankings are based primarily on economic data, and don’t consider environmental impacts like mountains of out-of-state trash.
The tight focus on income vs. cost makes it “tough to really get into hyper-localized issues,” Rob said.
He’s right. The state Department of Environmental Protection analysts proved it with their “environmental assessment” of the landfill expansion, which reads like a sales pitch for time-share condos in Chernobyl.
The newspaper covered the assessment extensively when it was released in July, but there has been little landfill news since. I thank the internet bean-counters at GOBankingRates.com for inadvertently reminding me that Northeast Pennsylvania’s most “hyper-local issue” must be revisited from time to time.
None of us can afford to ignore the iceberg of coffee grounds, take-out containers and dirty diapers that threatens to sink the region’s future.
The website’s analysts also brought into tight focus the folly of evaluating places where people live in dollars and cents alone. DEP “regulators” did just that when they touted the $178.6 million Keystone would pay to Throop and the $160.6 million the landfIll would deliver to Dunmore in host community fees over the four-decade expansion.
Keystone would also pay hundreds of millions of dollars for wages, supplies and equipment, which the regulators apparently see as ample compensation for persistent noxious odors, potential groundwater contamination, flocks of filthy gulls and other nasty facts of life around a landfill.
DEP’s assessment ignores the potential negative economic effects of the expansion, which are tough to calculate in real time but not hard to forecast. How much economic activity — investment, industry, jobs — will be lost when our region is written off as the Trash Capital of the Northeast?
Who would want to call such a place home?
I briefly lived in Dunmore when I was a rookie correspondent assigned to cover the borough. I was earning far less than $50,000 a year, but I had a decent apartment and good, welcoming neighbors.
One of the first things they told me was that Dunmore is a great place to live, but as a reporter I needed to understand that its prospects and processes are geared to serve the business interests of a man whose name I need not mention. You know who.
He owns Dunmore, they said. We just live in it and pay the bills.
If the landfill expansion permit is granted, generations will pay the consequences
Keystone either dump or structure
Today's The Scranton Times-Tribune editorial is directly on point on KSL's status as a structure or a dump. You can't have it both ways.
KSL is looking for the Borough of Dunmore to bail them out here, plain and simple.
We think the Borough (Council and Planning) will recognize this as the end-run that it is and deny this proposed zoning change.
--> PA courts have held that mega landfills, just like this one, are structures.
--> As the editorial states, for 30 years, KSL has insisted that the landfill is "a state-of-the-art piece of high-tech modern engineering, incorporating complex design elements..." - you can't be both that and a pile of dirt.
--> Ruling in KSL's favor would affirm what people have been saying for a long time - our area is dominated by garbage.
Keystone again trying to change Dunmore zoning ordinance to say landfills are not structures
“We simply tried to help the borough help itself.” - Keystone's attorney
Amazing selflessness by KSL. As always. #grateful.
FOL doesn't quite see it that way. Not even a little bit.
Excerpts
Keystone’s attorneys argue the landfill isn’t a structure, an argument Dunmore’s zoning board agreed with in October 2015. The anti-expansion grassroots group Friends of Lackawanna and six landfill neighbors then appealed the zoning board’s decision in Lackawanna County Court, arguing the landfill is a structure.
Senior Judge Leonard Zito issued an order in October upholding the zoning board’s decision that sided with Keystone, prompting the landfill opponents to appeal to Commonwealth Court, where the case awaits resolution.
When Keystone originally proposed the zoning change, the Lackawanna County Regional Planning Commission reviewed the proposal and could not make a recommendation. Whether landfills are structures subject to height restrictions in a zoning ordinance “is unsettled law in Pennsylvania,” the commission wrote in an ordinance/amendment evaluation report that cited, among other things, the pending appeal in Commonwealth Court
Landfill’s unhealthy benefits
Excellent letter to the Editor!
https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/…/letters-to-the-editor-7-…
Landfill’s unhealthy benefits
Editor: Every “benefit” in the recently released state’s environmental assessment for the proposed Keystone Sanitary Landfill expansion is economic and social.
Considering the economic advantages of the host agreement, goods and services purchased locally, employment and employee-related costs and the annual reimbursement to Keystone College for its environmental education program, the benefit to each person in Throop and Dunmore equals about $7.55 daily.
The landfill’s “harms” include litter, noise, vectors, fires, stormwater, leachate reaching the Lackawanna River and groundwater, and harms to our air with odors and toxins. Every harm is environmental and affects community health.
Some harms currently may affect our health. Exposure to benzene increases the risk of cancer, the second-leading cause of death in Pennsylvania. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leukemia rates for Lackawanna County were higher than Philadelphia County in 2012-2016.
According to a state Department of Health report, Keystone landfill was monitored for toxins. The monitoring period for the landfill was January to April 2016. Elevated levels of benzene were detected. As a result, the report recommended “a fence line air monitoring program that includes publicly accessible real-time results.”
The landfill still seeks approval from the Department of Environmental Protection air quality staff and must provide details of a comprehensive air monitoring program. I recommend calling the DEP air quality staff and telling them that, due to the current release of toxins, the monitoring program is the only one that should be approved.
I should be able to look at my phone and see hourly levels of benzene and other toxins in the air so that I can better protect my family. The air quality staff should deny the landfill’s application because any risk to the quality of our air, water and environment is too much, and definitely not worth $7.55 a day.
SAMANTHA MALONEY
SCRANTON
Deodorizer....
Somehow the Pa DEP can make their "logic" stink more than a century of trash.
Broad view of benefits
We completely agree with the opinion by the Times Editorial Board.
https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/…/broad-view-of-benefits-1…
Broad view of benefits
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: JULY 14, 2019
Who knew that dumping an extra 100 million tons of mostly out-of-state garbage in the area could produce benefits so vast that they outweigh the harms inherent in such an enterprise?
According to the state Department of Environmental “Protection,” the proposed massive expansion of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill is, in effect, a blessing to Northeast Pennsylvania. The results of its harms-benefits analysis indicate that the agency uses an extraordinarily broad definition of “benefit.”
The agency, as its name suggests, exists to protect Pennsylvania’s environment. Yet the benefits it attributed to the landfill expansion are all economic, even though some of them are not benefits, whereas most of the harms it acknowledged are environmental.
Regulators cited as a benefit, for example, the $178.6 million the landfill would pay to Throop and the $160.6 million it would pay to Dunmore in host community fees over the proposed 40-year expansion.
Host community fees exist to help those towns deal with the burdens that a massive landfill places on them. It is upfront, preemptive compensation rather than a simple benefit. If the business were anything other than a massive dump, the communities would pay the company to locate there through tax abatements and subsidies, rather than accepting payments to put up with it.
The DEP also noted that the landfill will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in wages and buy hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of equipment and supplies across the decades of expansion. It does not calculate, however, the job creation and related economic activity lost in a county dominated by waste disposal.
The proposed harms are mostly negative environmental impacts that the DEP is supposed to guard against. They include pervasive odors, potential groundwater contamination and other environmental problems but, fear not — the DEP says the landfill has plans to mitigate those actual and potential harms.
So far on this project, the DEP has managed to convert assessment of a development that will have a massive impact on the quality of life in the region into a bloodless bureaucratic process of checking off boxes. But it has the benefit of low expectations because Northeast Pennsylvanians live with the results of that approach from the lingering scars of industrial-scale mining to the exalted status that the Legislature has bestowed upon the natural gas industry.
"Dubious ‘benefits’
A great LTE on the DEP's mission and how it relates to the purported "benefits" of the proposed expansion.
"Dubious ‘benefits’
Editor: I have a question for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection regarding its recent statement regarding the proposed Keystone Sanitary Landfill expansion.
But first, I had to go look up the agency’s mission statement. From the DEP website: “The Department of Environmental Protection’s mission is to protect Pennsylvania’s air, land and water from pollution and to provide for the health and safety of its citizens through a cleaner environment. We will work as partners with individuals, organizations, governments and businesses to prevent pollution and restore our natural resources.”
My question for DEP is: How can the so-called “benefits” to allow the landfill’s expansion have nothing to do with the environment? If the DEP’s mission is to protect the environment, but it can’t list a positive environmental effect of this expansion, why did officials there feel the need to list socioeconomic benefits as apparent decision-making positives?
COSMO LOVECCHIO
SOUTH ABINGTON TWP."
Landfill closer to receiving expansion permit
Alternate Headline: "Megadump uses excess methane to fuel decades long, statewide Gaslighting campaign"
“There are no viable, financially feasible alternatives to landfilling at this point and time,” Keystone Sanitary Landfill consultant Al Magnotta said.
Well, so long as Pennsylvania aggressively seeks out expansionary trash policy, no one will ever have to figure out any alternatives.
Oh yeah, there's over a half-century of capacity in the US; Pennsylvania has around 400 million tons of capacity remaining. And locally? We are lucky enough to have a second mega dump with decades of capacity left. We don't need any more.
This sustained garbage-first state policy will trash our future.
We are continuing our mission one day at a time.
DEP: Benefits of Keystone Sanitary Landfill's proposed expansions outweigh harms
This environmental assessment relied on people in the right positions to do the right thing based on the factual evidence uncovered by Friends of Lackawanna. Despite our best efforts, that has not happened. The fact that DEP could make a statement as preposterous as "the benefits of the landfill clearly outweigh the harms" is quite simply, not true unless you value money over environmental health and the sanctity of life.
What are your thoughts? Do you think the DEP is inept? Corrupt? Both? Other?
We will continue to fight and uncover the truth.
Full Scranton Times Article Here.
Exceprpts:
Harms and benefits
The assessment itself lists 15 harms, some environmental and other social and economic, as well as Keystone’s proposed mitigation for each one and DEP’s determination of remaining impacts.
In certain cases, DEP found that some potential for harm will remain despite Keystone’s proposed mitigation.
Regarding odor, for example, DEP found Keystone’s proposed mitigation is unlikely to completely eliminate odors at all times. There also remains a potential for negative groundwater impacts despite improvements the landfill has made to its leachate treatment plant and other completed or planned mitigation projects, according to DEP.
The assessment also lists eight benefits of Keystone’s proposal, all of them social and economic.
For example, Keystone estimates it will purchase about $248.7 million in fuels, oils and lubricants, and about $557.6 million in machinery, equipment, services, rentals and maintenance, from local and regional vendors over the life of the expansion.
The assessment also lists the estimated values of host agreements with the landfill to be about $178.6 million for Throop and about $160.6 million for Dunmore over the life of the expansion, though DEP notes host fees are based on the tonnage of waste received at the landfill and there is no guaranteed minimum amount.
The assessment frustrated members of the anti-expansion group Friends of Lackawanna.
“DEP’s analysis acknowledges that there have been, and still are, ongoing issues with the landfill such as groundwater degradation, air quality, visual impacts, leachate problems and more,” Pat Clark, a founding member of Friends of Lackawanna, said in a written statement. “DEP then lists the benefits, all of which are financial, and determined they ‘clearly’ outweigh the harms. Sadly, it goes to show that you can throw enough money at a problem and get your way, even if it is at the expense of an entire region’s future.”
It's a... Business
With all due respect, Mr. Magnotta, it may be a business to you, but it is our community, our health, and our children’s future that are at stake.
Structural obfuscation
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: MAY 12, 2019
The Keystone Sanitary Landfill submitted, then withdrew a proposal for Dunmore Borough to amend its zoning ordinance to state that the landfill is not a structure. (Times-Tribune File)
Ever since owners of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill first proposed a gargantuan expansion that would extend its life by more than 40 years, the company has maintained a technical, unemotional argument for the project — with one telling exception.
Whenever skeptics, including this page, have referred to the landfill as a “dump,” landfill spokesmen have bristled. Keystone is not a dump, they have said, but a high-tech engineering marvel. It includes a state-of-the-art system to collect and treat landfill runoff known as leachate, and another system collects methane to be used as a fuel for power generation and to prevent its escape into the atmosphere.
All of that is key to the question of whether the landfill can expand. Dunmore’s zoning ordinance precludes a structure higher than 50 feet in the zone covering the landfill’s location. But the zoning board dutifully found in 2014 that the marvel of engineering is not a structure, thus exempting it from the restriction.
Landfill opponents appealed that decision, lost in local court and appealed to the Commonwealth Court. They appear to have a better chance there to overturn the zoning board decision because, also in 2014, that court ruled that a landfill in Pine Twp., Mercer County, is indeed a structure subject to zoning height restrictions.
It would be unusual for the appellate court not to abide by its own precedent, which the landfill operators appear to recognize. They recently asked Dunmore to change its zoning ordinance to settle the height issue in their favor before the Commonwealth Court might decide otherwise. Under the proposal, the ordinance itself would declare that the landfill is not a structure, making it expandable skyward.
Landfill representatives did not appear at a scheduled borough planning commission hearing on the matter, and the commission recommended against the change.
As Pat Clark, of expansion opponent Friends of Lackawanna, put it: “KSL has spent the past 30 years touting its self-proclaimed, state-of-the-art status and its modern engineering sophistication. All of a sudden, they wanted everyone to forget those assertions and pretend this high-tech structure is a mere pile of dirt, not a structure. You can’t have it both ways.”
But Clark has skin in the game. What does an informed neutral party say? Advanced Disposal, which owns 200 landfills, to the question on its website, “What is a landfill?” responds: “A landfill is a carefully designed structure built into or on top of the ground, in which trash is separated from the area around it.”