Reclassify fracking waste as hazardous

Pennsylvania generates a lot of waste from fracking. But this waste, even though it contains proprietary chemicals and radioactive material, is automatically classified as residual waste. This means it can be sent to residual landfills. Such as, you guessed it, the Keystone Sanitary Landfill.

This Scranton Times editorial lays out the gaps in this antiquated approach to the State's approach and calls for testing of all fracking related waste prior to disposal.

This is yet another problem with PA's continued pro-trash policy.

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_69379bc6...

Meet Dr. Jessica Nolan, Woman of Environmental Education

Congratulations, Dr. Jessica Nolan! Jessica has been on team FOL for years and we are thrilled to see environmentally-focused individuals continue to be recognized. Well done and much deserved!

Dr. Jessica Nolan is a Professor of Conservation Psychology and Director of the Environmental Studies Concentration at the University of Scranton. Nolan has over 20 years of experience in environmental outreach and education, including 13 years working in higher education in Northeast Pennsylvania.

She has a bachelor’s degree in natural resources from Cornell University and graduate degrees in psychology from California State University and the University of Arkansas.

As a conservation social scientist, Nolan has worked to “give psychology away” by educating her students, environmental practitioners, and the general public about effective strategies for motivating environmental behavior changes. She has published more than a dozen articles on environmental behavior in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and has worked to bridge the gap between the world of research and practice by presenting her work in popular media outlets and at local, regional, and national conferences attended by environmental practitioners. In her Environmental & Conservation Psychology course she guides students in applying the principles of community-based social-marketing to promote environmental behaviors that have been identified by community partners.

Nolan is also the founder of Green Drinks Scranton, an informal networking group that provides a forum for folks interested in environmental issues to connect and learn from one another. Since its start in 2009, Nolan has recruited and coordinated more than two dozen guest speakers and special events on topics such as green lighting, passive solar houses, and local environmental history, among others.

Nolan has also partnered with local environmental groups such as Friends of Lackawanna, EPCAMR, and LRCA to sponsor more than a dozen co-curricular events for students and the local community in her role as Director of the Environmental Studies Concentration at the University of Scranton.

By educating students and the public to better understand the human dimensions of environmental problems and how we can motivate people to change their behavior, Nolan’s work helps move us toward a more sustainable future.

Congratulations, Jess!

More information and tickets: https://pennfuture.salsalabs.org/womeninconser.../index.html 

Auditor general's office won't review DEP's approval of landfill's expansion permit

ICYMI - The Auditor General's office denied a joint request made by councils of Scranton, Dunmore and Jessup to review DEP's approval process relating to KSL.

What was FOL's take? “This is the newest addition to the never-ending list of instances of the state looking the other way ... for anything and everything that has to do with this landfill ... They don’t want to police it. Or audit the permitting process. Yet we have to live with it.”


Auditor general's office won't review DEP's approval of landfill's expansion permit

Officials in Scranton, Dunmore and Jessup requested performance audit of approval process; DEP maintains approval decision meets state regulatory requirements

BY JEFF HORVATH STAFF WRITER

The state auditor general’s office won’t review the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s controversial 40-year expansion application.

After a seven-year review process spanning thousands of pages of documentation, plans and reports, the DEP approved a major permit modification for the landfill, located in Dunmore and Throop, on June 3. The approval — which the grassroots anti-expansion group Friends of Lackawanna appealed to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board — gives the landfill the capacity to add 188 billion pounds of additional garbage through 2060, tripling its total volume of waste.

In the wake of that decision, Scranton City Council voted in June to request the state Department of the Auditor General conduct a performance audit of the DEP’s process for approving the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill’s expansion permit application. Dunmore and Jessup borough councils later voted to do the same.

But in a Wednesday letter to Scranton City Council Solicitor Kevin Hayes, F. Stephenson Matthes, chief counsel for the auditor general’s office, wrote the office is unable to fulfill the request.

“As I’m sure you are aware, our department continues to face several challenges, including severe budget and staffing constraints, which greatly limit our ability to take on audits like the one you request,” Matthes wrote. “We understand and acknowledge that this has been an ongoing issue of concern for the community.”

The response frustrated local officials who requested the audit and anti-expansion advocates who endorsed it.

“I thought it was a weak excuse from the auditor general,” said Scranton City Council President Bill Gaughan. “It’s very disheartening. I mean it’s not like we’re asking for an audit of a pension fund. We’re talking about people’s lives here. We’re talking about their health (and) the future of our community.”

The auditor general’s office not conducting the requested performance audit is the most recent example of state government failing and ignoring Northeast Pennsylvania residents, Pat Clark, a leader of Friends of Lackawanna, wrote in an email on behalf of the group.

“This is the newest addition to the never-ending list of instances of the state looking the other way ... for anything and everything that has to do with this landfill,” Clark wrote. “They don’t want to police it. Or audit the permitting process. Yet we have to live with it.”

In May, the state attorney general’s office confirmed it is investigating the landfill, though the office declined to elaborate on the nature of the investigation.

Dunmore Mayor Timothy Burke and Councilwoman Janet Brier both called the response from the auditor general’s office disappointing.

“Going up (against) who we’re going up against, it doesn’t surprise me at all,” Burke said.

Efforts to reach Jessup Borough Council President Gerald Crinella were unsuccessful.

Attorney Jeffrey Belardi, who represents the landfill, argued the DEP’s expansion permit application review process was very thorough.

“I don’t think there was any stone left unturned so, even if there was an audit, it really wouldn’t concern me,” Belardi said. “I think DEP does a good job and I think they’d be able to defend themselves.”

DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly provided a written statement.

“The Department of Environmental Protection maintains that its decision to approve Keystone Landfill’s Phase III expansion meets state regulatory requirements,” the statement reads.

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Original article at:

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_5523a7ba...

Wolf: Landfills will soon be required to test for radium

Landfills will soon have to test for radium. This is another issue that was helped brought to light by grassroots organizations, independent journalists and other agencies across the state doing the DEP's job.

A step in the right direction? Sure. Enough? Nope. Another reason that massive landfills shouldn't be in the middle of residential communities? Yes.

Sam Maloney, one of the first local residents to bring this to the attention of the State acknowledged this as a "wonderful first step" but the fact that landfills can self report is a huge gap.

Michele Dempsey: "Though testing for radium is a step in the right direction, it doesn't account for how much has already been deposited and made its way into our drinking waterways,"... calling the process of approving the expansion and then implementing radium testing backwards. "Why do the residents of NEPA always seem to be seated last?"

Read the entire article below, link included.

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Wolf: Landfills will soon be required to test for radium

The additional testing aims to protect state waterways and drinking water.

By Frank Wilkes Lesnefsky

Landfills will soon be required to test leachate for radioactive contaminants, Gov. Tom Wolf's administration said Monday.

The state already requires landfills to test their leachate, or the liquid that percolates through garbage piles, for various contaminants before the effluent is treated But beginning later this year, leachate reports will include radium, according to the announcement.

By requiring landfills to measure radium, the state Department of Environmental Protection will be able to evaluate the presence of the radioactive metal in landfills. Specifically, the reports will include radium-226 and radium-228. The added testing is part of an effort to further protect the state's waterways and drinking water, according to the administration.

The DEP identifies contaminants in leachate through reports sent from landfills on a quarterly basis, according to the Wolf administration. Previous DEP studies did not identify significant differences in radium levels between landfills that accept oil and gas waste compared to those that do not, according to the announcement.

Radium occurs at trace levels in virtually all rock, soil, water, plants and animals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Oil and gas production can concentrate it, according to the agency. Chronic exposure to high levels of radium can result in increased incidence of bone, liver and breast cancer, according to the EPA.

“We take seriously our responsibility and duty as an environmental steward,” Wolf said in a statement. “This additional requirement will improve public confidence that public drinking water and our precious natural resources are being appropriately protected.”

The Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore and Throop uses sophisticated radiation testing when vehicles come into the landfill, and they test their leachate for volatile non-organic compounds, landfill consultant Al Magnotta said. He was unsure if they specifically test for those radioactive isotopes. He said adding the testing could cost some money, but nothing that would be an undue hardship.

The landfill is currently applying for a permit to treat its leachate to a higher degree and discharge it into Little Roaring Brook. As part of their sampling to establish preliminary criteria, they conducted a larger suite of testing, Magnotta said, explaining he believes it included radioactive compounds.

Waste Management spokesman John Hambrose said the Alliance Landfill, located in Taylor and Ransom Twp., test incoming waste for radiation — something he said they have done for more than 20 years.

"Waste Management and the team at Alliance Landfill place a premium on environmental compliance and share the state’s and community’s interest in protecting our waterways and drinking water," Hambrose said in a statement. "At this time, we are still gathering information about the regulation and how it will affect our operations."

As part of the state's announcement, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said his office urged Wolf to direct the DEP to "prevent harmful radioactive materials from entering Pennsylvania waterways."

“Pennsylvanians living next to landfills and in the shadow of fracking wells have a constitutional right to clean air and pure water, and the improved monitoring and promised analysis by DEP is a step in the right direction," Shapiro said.

Shapiro's office confirmed in May that it was investigating the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, though it did not disclose the nature of the investigation. Scranton resident Samantha Maloney, who is one of three locals working with the attorney general's office in its investigation, had explained the investigation appeared to be about leachate. Maloney was especially concerned over radium.

Since May, she has continued to stay in touch with state investigators via email, with their emails focusing on leachate.

She lauded the Wolf administration for acknowledging that radium can get into leachate, which can then get into rivers.

"I bet the people downstream are pretty happy, too," she said.

Maloney called it a "wonderful first step," but said she is still concerned with landfills self reporting their results.

"I'd still like to see self reporting ended," she said.

Michele Dempsey, a core member of Friends of Lackawanna, a grassroots group formed in 2014 in opposition of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill and its expansion, contended Wolf and the DEP should have had radium testing data prior to the approval of the landfill's Phase III expansion last month, which will allow Keystone to bring in an additional 94 million tons of waste over the next four decades.

"Though testing for radium is a step in the right direction, it doesn't account for how much has already been deposited and made its way into our drinking waterways," Dempsey said in a statement, calling the process of approving the expansion and then implementing radium testing backwards. "Why do the residents of NEPA always seem to be seated last?"

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_b3b1f67b...

Dunmore requests audit of landfill expansion approval

Three elected bodies have now joined in the request to have the Pennsylvania Auditor General review the DEP's process related to landfill permits -- Scranton, Dunmore & Jessup.

We are grateful for these officials sticking up for the residents of NEPA and look forward to the AG's review. As stated in the article, we think that the Auditor General, much like the Environmental Hearing Board and the Grand Jury, will find DEP's processes protect industry at the expense of the people.

Dunmore Councilwoman Janet Brier gets right to the heart of the matter -- “It’s a system that’s set up for the industry versus a little town like ours that doesn’t have a lot of resources,” Brier said. “The system is skewed toward industry, and we’re the people who will suffer because of that.”

Full article below.

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Dunmore requests audit of landfill expansion approval

BY FRANK WILKES LESNEFSKY STAFF WRITER

Dunmore, Jessup and Scranton have all requested an audit of the DEP's approval of Keystone Sanitary Landfill's Phase III expansion.

DUNMORE — Leaders of Scranton, Jessup and now Dunmore are pressuring the state auditor general to review the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s controversial 40-year expansion application.

Dunmore Borough Council voted 5-0 Monday night to send a letter to Pennsylvania Auditor General Timothy DeFoor to request a performance audit of the DEP’s decision to approve the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill’s Phase III expansion. Council President Michael Dempsey and Councilwoman Carol Scrimalli were absent.

Dunmore joins Scranton City Council, which voted last month to send a letter requesting the audit, and Jessup Borough Council, which voted last week to do the same.

After a seven-year review process spanning thousands of pages of documentation, plans and reports, the DEP approved a major permit modification for the landfill, located in Dunmore and Throop, on June 3. The approval gives the landfill the capacity to add 188 billion pounds of additional garbage through 2060, tripling its total volume of waste.

DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly declined to comment on Dunmore’s request Monday night.

Should DeFoor decide to audit the DEP’s process, his department will be the third state agency looking into the landfill or its expansion. In May, the state attorney general’s office confirmed it is investigating the landfill, though the office declined to provide the nature of the investigation.

Last week, Friends of Lackawanna, a grassroots group formed in 2014 in opposition to the landfill and its expansion, appealed the decision to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board, asking it to revoke the landfill’s expansion approval.

Pat Clark, a leader of Friends of Lackawanna, said in a statement they are grateful for the elected bodies willing to stand up for area residents by requesting that the auditor general place the DEP’s processes under a microscope.

“We expect that the auditor general will find that the DEP’s approach comes up well short of its mandate when the light is shined on them,” he said.

Friends of Lackawanna recruited Jessup after having been in contact with Citizens for a Healthy Jessup since its dispute over Invenergy’s Lackawanna Energy Center, Clark said, explaining the Jessup group always asked them how they could help. According to its Facebook page, the Jessup group describes itself as supporting the pursuit of personal, environmental, social and economic health of Jessup residents and the surrounding area.

Jessup Councilwoman Rella Scassellati, who is also vice president of Citizens for a Healthy Jessup, said borough council unanimously voted to send the letter last week. Although she was optimistic that the letters will put the auditor general in a position to perform the audit, she was less optimistic about the outcome.

“Do I think it’ll make a difference?” she asked. “I wish I could say yes, but I just don’t have the faith I used to have.”

Dunmore Mayor Timothy Burke, who also signed the audit request, said it’s something borough officials previously discussed, and he’s glad the borough is requesting the audit.

“I think (DEP) chose money over people’s health, and that’s it,” Burke said.

Councilwoman Janet Brier lauded Scranton for taking the lead in seeking the audit as the largest municipality in the county.

“It’s a system that’s set up for the industry versus a little town like ours that doesn’t have a lot of resources,” Brier said. “The system is skewed toward industry, and we’re the people who will suffer because of that.”

Attorney Jeffrey Belardi, who represents the landfill, attended the meeting. Council’s vote “wasn’t unexpected,” he said. Belardi defended the DEP and questioned why Scranton requested the audit. He called it preposterous for people to insinuate the DEP doesn’t do its job.

“I think it’s unfair to DEP,” he said.

Reached after the meeting, Scranton City Council President Bill Gaughan said he believes the joint requests give Scranton’s letter more weight.

“It is just a disgrace that the DEP gave the landfill the ability to expand for 40 more years,” Gaughan said. “We, and I think I speak for a lot of people in Scranton, Dunmore and in Lackawanna County, we do not want to see that landfill expand. It is not in the best interest of the people of our area.”

Gaughan explained city council’s rationale in requesting the audit, noting that thousands of people have spoken out against it.

“Well, apparently Mr. Belardi doesn’t understand the opposition from this, and he doesn’t live next to the landfill or near the landfill,” Gaughan said. “He doesn’t apparently smell the landfill, and he doesn’t understand the harms that come from the landfill.”

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_bdc992fd...

Face-to-face with 100 million tons of trash

Sometimes it is easier to simply say, "please just read the whole piece." Today is one of those times. Today's The Scranton Times-Tribune editorial points out that a multi-billion organization seems obsessed with how FOL, a 100% volunteer-run organization, continues to battle them. Well, the answer is simple. It is you. Our Friends. It always has been, and always will be, our Friends that allow us to fight. It's something they'll never really understand.

And if you ever want to click "Donate" we will be forever grateful whether it is for $1 or it has a few more zeroes.

Thank you.

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Face-to-face with 100 million tons of trash

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Neighbors of the massive and growing Keystone Sanitary Landfill often smell decaying garbage, but the landfill company smells a conspiracy.

Friends of Lackawanna, a nonprofit group that opposes the landfill expansion, recently appealed to the independent state Environmental Hearing Board, asking it to overturn the Department of Environmental Protection’s ill-considered and unwarranted approval of Keystone’s 40-plus year, 100 million-ton expansion plan.

It’s clear who will pay for that expansion. In terms of dollars it primarily will be out-of-state companies and communities that pay the landfill to dump their millions of tons of garbage in the middle of Lackawanna County. More broadly, it will be the residents of the county and Northeast Pennsylvania who must deal with the environmental and other quality-of-life fallouts from the trash mountain.

But according to landfill consultant Al Magnotta, the real issue is where Friends of Lackawanna gets the money to pester the multibillion-dollar enterprise with permit challenges and the impending formal appeal.

“In America with the constitutional right to litigate comes the constitutional right of the defendant to be face-to-face with the plaintiff,” Magnotta wrote in a prepared statement, suggesting in effect that Friends of Lackawanna is not the true adversary.

Well, who is this unknown Goliath making a David out of the landfill — Eco-terrorists? Greenpeace? The Clintons? George Soros?

It makes no difference. As a duly registered nonprofit, Friends of Lackawanna is bound by IRS rules for the collection and disbursement of its money.

The real issues are those raised by Friends of Lackawanna in its appeal: that the expansion infringes upon the community’s constitutional right to “clean air, pure water and the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.”

That wording is from Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, the Environmental Rights Amendment that voters approved in 1971 by a 4-1 margin.

In its Keystone decision, the DEP has taken that constitutional mandate as a mere suggestion. Ideally, the Environmental Hearing Board will give it more serious consideration, regardless of who contributes to Friends of Lackawanna.

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https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_26c1ac4c...

appeal 2021.PNG

Friends of Lackawanna asked the state Environmental Hearing Board to revoke the landfill's 40-year expansion approval.

Friends of Lackawanna asked the state Environmental Hearing Board to revoke the landfill's 40-year expansion approval.

BY FRANK WILKES LESNEFSKY STAFF WRITER

In a bid to prevent the Keystone Sanitary Landfill from accepting 188 billion pounds of garbage over the next 40 years, landfill opponents appealed to the state Environmental Hearing Board this week to revoke Keystone’s expansion approval.

Citing leachate management, groundwater pollution, compliance issues, governmental oversight, odors, visual impacts, property values and other issues, attorneys for Friends of Lackawanna, a grassroots group formed in 2014 in opposition of the landfill and its expansion, filed an appeal with the hearing board Monday.

The hearing board is an independent, quasi-judicial agency made up of five full-time, governor-appointed judges who have jurisdiction to hold hearings and rule on orders, permits, licenses and decisions of the state Department of Environmental Protection, according to Pennsylvania’s 1988 Environmental Hearing Board Act.

The appeal requests that the hearing board vacates the DEP’s June 3 decision approving a major permit modification for the landfill in Dunmore and Throop’s Phase II expansion. The expansion allows the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill to continue hauling in waste for the next four decades, totaling 94 billion tons through 2060. Under its modified permit, Keystone now has the capacity to triple its volume of trash.

“The approval of the Phase III major modification of the KSL landfill is inconsistent with, and unreasonably infringes on the community’s constitutional right to clean air, pure water and the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment,” attorney Mark L. Freed of Doylestown-based Curtin & Heefner LLP wrote in the appeal. “Furthermore, the approval fails to protect the air and water natural resources in the area for the benefit of the community and future generations.”

DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly acknowledged the appeal but said she could not provide additional comment.

“The DEP is aware of an appeal filed by Friends of Lackawanna with the Environmental Hearing Board regarding the department’s decision to issue a major permit modification to Keystone Landfill for its Phase III expansion in Lackawanna County,” she said in an email. “This is now a matter of litigation, so the DEP will have no further comment.”

Monday’s appeal is the second time Friends of Lackawanna has challenged the landfill before the Environmental Hearing Board.

The group appealed the DEP’s renewal of the landfill’s operating permit in 2015. In 2017, the hearing board decided not to rescind the landfill’s operating permit, though it did require Keystone to prepare a groundwater assessment plan because of contamination a monitoring well had detected for 15 years.

Landfill consultant Al Magnotta argued that the allegations in the new appeal are the same as the allegations the hearing board rejected in 2017. In a written statement, Magnotta questioned the source of Friends of Lackawanna’s funding for its legal fees.

He pointed out that the group petitioned to be reimbursed for nearly $800,000 in legal fees following the 2017 ruling, and the board awarded them $17,801. He cited their tax exemption filings with the Internal Revenue Service that showed $262,219 in funding from 2014 through 2018.

“In America with the Constitutional right to litigate comes the Constitutional right of the defendant to be face to face with the plaintiff,” Magnotta wrote.

Pat Clark, a leader of Friends of Lackawanna, said they know the rules of nonprofit filings and follow them accordingly.

“It never ceases to amaze me how the landfill likes to focus on the nonsubstantive issues, and our funding is just another example of that,” he said. “They’re a billion dollar corporation wondering how a 100% volunteer-based nonprofit organization is fighting them. I take that as a compliment.”

Clark said that while they are using many of the same arguments as their previous appeal, the standards are different when appealing an operating permit compared to appealing the expansion.

He said one of the hearing board’s core findings in 2017 was that there was no record for the DEP to use to deny the landfill’s permit because the DEP had “failed in its obligation to inspect, enforce and record violations.”

In the board’s 2017 decision, Judge Bernard Labuskes Jr. — who is also assigned to the 2021 appeal — wrote, “The (DEP) relies upon formal, memorialized violations in conducting its review of Keystone’s compliance history, but the department, with rare exceptions, never memorializes any of Keystone’s violations.”

“Since then, all they’ve done is find problems, and all we’ve done is help uncover more problems,” Clark said. “A lot of those same issues have magnified, and all of those issues will exponentially magnify if this expansion is allowed.”

Unintentionally coinciding with Friends of Lackawanna’s appeal, political activist Gene Stilp, a Northeast Pennsylvania native who now lives near Harrisburg, held a protest outside of the landfill Wednesday morning. Stilp, who described himself as a longtime opponent of landfills, said Dunmore police cited him for obstructing garbage trucks trying to enter the landfill.

“I think it’s important to put your actions where your beliefs are — that’s why I came up today,” he said. “It was an honor to support the efforts to block the expansion.”

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_1bc5dc4e...

Scranton Times' Editorial Boad Supports Scranton Council's Initiative to have AG Check DEP Approval Process

Today's Editorial in The Scranton Times-Tribune supports Scranton City Council's initiative to have the Auditor General evaluate DEP's processes as it relates to landfill expansions.

From today's editorial: "Waste disposal is a public burden, but the Keystone project demonstrates the burden for it falls disproportionately on a few areas. Yes, garbage has to be disposed somewhere, but that doesn’t mean that it always has to be here."

As to the feasibility of of the audit? We agree with Council Solicitor Kevin Hayes on this issue, “To be certain, the Auditor General has the discretion and authority to conduct a special performance audit in order to provide an independent assessment of DEP’s procedures, including the permitting process for landfill expansion applications ...It is City Council’s opinion that DEP’s landfill permitting process is in dire need of independent scrutiny in the wake of its recent approval of Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s 40-year expansion plan which was met with overwhelming opposition from the residents most directly affected by this facility.”

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DEP audit of process sound idea

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

State approval of the massive Keystone Sanitary Landfill expansion betrays the public interest in Northeast Pennsylvania, but it is far from a local issue.

Allowing any single enterprise to impose so massive an environmental, economic and quality-of-life burden on any particular area calls for a rethinking of state environmental law and regulation.

To that end, Scranton City Council came up with a fine idea in asking state Auditor General Timothy DeFoor to conduct a performance audit of DEP’s permitting process.

Performance audits go beyond the matter of money-in, money-out, and analyze how public agencies actually use the public’s money to conduct their work.

In the case of the DEP permit approval for the Keystone Landfill, there are a multitude of technical requirements that the landfill had to meet, which always is an aspect of regulation.

But the DEP “cost-benefit” analysis of the project, which is required by state law due to an earlier massive landfill project in Lackawanna County, requires investigation.

Even under the current Keystone landfill, the DEP has failed to detect odors that were obvious throughout the surrounding neighborhoods several years ago. And the state attorney general has opened an investigation into wastewater disposal issues at the landfill, which are supposed to be the province of the DEP.

Even though the expansion will result in 188 billion more pounds of mostly out-of-state garbage being dumped in the middle of Lackawanna County over the next 40 years, the DEP managed to conclude that the project’s benefits outweigh its costs to the community.

A performance audit could begin with that analysis, which clearly failed to consider the most fundamental impacts of the burgeoning dump on its surrounding communities.

Ideally, such an examination would lead to a further one in the state Legislature. It should craft environmental law to limit the size of waste projects. Waste disposal is a public burden, but the Keystone project demonstrates the burden for it falls disproportionately on a few areas. Yes, garbage has to be disposed somewhere, but that doesn’t mean that it always has to be here.

Council’s request is reasonable and well-considered. DeFoor should take the challenge.

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https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_acdb6d8c...

FOL's Pat Clark's Op-Ed

This OpEd by FOL's Pat Clark points out the continued failures by DEP and how the citizens of NEPA take a second seat to generational garbage.

"We know there can be a bright future for Northeast Pennsylvania, a future that can overcome this undeniable setback. And we know that belief exists in many by virtue of the unending support and encouragement we have received since we began.

For this, we will be forever grateful. We aren’t going anywhere and with the public’s support, we will continue to fight."

Full column (and link to online version) below.

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DEP fails mission, reason to exist in landfill ruling

BY PATRICK CLARK GUEST COLUMNIST

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s expansion request is an absolute failure on every level and solidifies its complete disregard for the citizens of Northeast Pennsylvania.

It validated what many in our area have suspected for 30 years and will now live with for another 40 — that the money from generational garbage trumps all else including our health and future. The landfill will now be allowed to triple the amount of trash it already has and extend its life by four decades. At the end of this permit, Lackawanna County’s monument to trash will house more than 300 billion pounds of waste, most from out of state.

For years, people have called the DEP, and its decision-making processes, incompetent. However, we disagree. This process and decision is much worse than mere incompetence. It is dismissive. It is hypocritical. It is dangerous. It is another large-scale example of the DEP failing its mission, its only reason for existence: “...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 believe this decision is an irredeemable indictment of the DEP. However, this isn’t just our opinion. In recent years, independent institutions in Pennsylvania also have called out the DEP for its continued failures.

A 2020 grand jury report, examining the DEP’s oversight of the natural gas fracking industry, concluded that the DEP “did not do enough to properly protect the health, safety and welfare of the thousands of Pennsylvania citizens who were affected by this industry” and “government institutions often failed in their constitutional duty to act as a trustee and guardian “of all the people,” as Article 1, Section 27 (of the Pennsylvania Constitution) provides … We believe some DEP employees saw the job more as serving the industry than the public.”

A 2017 ruling by Pennsylvania’s Environmental Hearing Board, in examining DEP’s handling of the landfill, found that DEP has not “consistently exercised vigorous oversight of the landfill consistent with its regulatory and constitutional responsibilities with just as much concern about the rights of the landfill’s neighbors as the rights of the landfill.”

Throughout this expansion evaluation, the DEP has displayed an unfailing ability to provide the landfill with every possible benefit of the doubt. It has minimized any discovered problems. It has papered over shortcomings. It has ushered the landfill through the gates of approval while attempting to window-dress the process by substituting thickness of binders for fairness and common sense.

The landfill’s submissions, of course, are curated for their benefit. However, the DEP’s default stance of “taking the landfill’s word for it” falls short of any standard of reasonableness:

■ The health consultation report’s recommendation for additional air monitoring, since some of the contaminants detected in the air can cause transitory health effects for pregnant women, children, older adults and people with respiratory disease? Let’s request the landfill put together its own proposed air monitoring program. Check.

■ The impact on property values? The landfill retained a real estate appraiser who said there are no diminished values. Check.

■ The 15-plus years of known groundwater contamination? The landfill says it figured that out. Check.

■ The negative impact on an environmental justice community? We had an extra hearing; good enough. Check.

■ The ongoing, active investigation by the state attorney general’s office into the landfill? Approve the expansion before getting results. Check.

■ The nearly unanimous opposition of elected officials to this expansion? Thanks for your letters. Check.

Friends of Lackawanna has fought this fight tirelessly since 2014. Although this decision is the exact opposite of what we have worked for, we believe that since 2014, there has been a sea change of attitudes in what can be done for the area. It feels like people are more willing to stand up for themselves. To stop accepting the status quo. To get involved. To fight for a better future. And we believe that Friends of Lackawanna helped light that fuse.

We know there can be a bright future for Northeast Pennsylvania, a future that can overcome this undeniable setback. And we know that belief exists in many by virtue of the unending support and encouragement we have received since we began.

For this, we will be forever grateful. We aren’t going anywhere and with the public’s support, we will continue to fight.

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

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_8679a935...

Scranton Times' Chris Kelly's Take on KSP Expansion Approval

This column by Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune is his latest installment calling out the woefully inept DEP and how engaged citizens and FOL have stepped up to the plate when the regulators abandoned us. We are very grateful for Mr. Kelly's willingness to continue to shine a light on this issue.

"The approval is a disheartening shame, but there is an easy-to-overlook upside under the 94 million tons of mostly out-of-state waste Keystone can stack between now and 2060. DEP’s capitulation frees its casualties to face the landfill’s super-sized future with clear eyes, undimmed conviction and stubborn action.

This ain’t over.

Friends of Lackawanna, the grassroots nonprofit that stepped into the vacuum left by ineffective, incompetent and often corrupt officials, has vowed to appeal DEP’s decision to the Environmental Hearing Board."

You can read the full column (and the link to the online version) below.

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

Chris Kelly Opinion: Greetings from Garbageville

When it approved the unconscionable four-decade expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill on Thursday, the state Department of Environmental Protection did Northeast Pennsylvanians a backhanded favor for the ages.

By bowing to the wealth and power of one family at the expense of generations to come, the alleged protector of the public habitat proved once and for all that it cannot be trusted to honor the mission that animated its creation.

For seven years, opponents of the expansion held out hope that DEP officials would respect overwhelming community opposition, recognize the expansion’s obvious aesthetic, economic and public health harms and respond accordingly. Now we can dispense with quaint, quixotic notions of government choosing the common good over uncommon political influence.

We are on our own. The cavalry is not coming. The horizon teems with garbage trucks and trash trains. Waste is our brand. Greetings from Garbageland!

The approval is a disheartening shame, but there is an easy-to-overlook upside under the 94 million tons of mostly out-of-state waste Keystone can stack between now and 2060. DEP’s capitulation frees its casualties to face the landfill’s super-sized future with clear eyes, undimmed conviction and stubborn action.

This ain’t over.

Friends of Lackawanna, the grassroots nonprofit that stepped into the vacuum left by ineffective, incompetent and often corrupt officials, has vowed to appeal DEP’s decision to the Environmental Hearing Board. It’s highly unlikely FOL will prevail, but that was always so.

When I first sat down with FOL founders in 2014, I lauded their civic passion and solid resolve, but reminded them who they were up against. I had been reporting on and writing about Keystone owner Louis DeNaples for more than 20 years and had never seen him denied anything he demanded.

“Louis gets what Louis wants,” I said. “This is his county. We just live in it and pay the consequences.”

The FOL upstarts diligently downplayed the “DeNaples mystique.” They didn’t want a war with a foe who never loses. They chose to focus on the existential threat the expansion posed to its host communities — Dunmore and Throop — and the region as a whole, regardless of who owned the dump.

It proved an effective strategy. The less the fight was about DeNaples, the more winnable it seemed. FOL’s activism inspired citizens to stand together against the expansion, run against and defeat DeNaples’ elected enablers at the local level and pressure higher officials to take a side. Most stood with the people, at least rhetorically.

State Rep. Marty Flynn supported the expansion. The West Scranton Democrat — who has accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from DeNaples family members — won the 22nd District Senate seat in a May 18 special election. Flynn is 45. He could pay DeNaples legislative dividends for decades.

Louis DeNaples is 80. Over a long career of philanthropy, he has done much good for some — those big, beautiful buildings at the University of Scranton are a concrete example — but his legacy will be a mountain of waste choking the heart of a region that deserves better considering all it’s given him.

DeNaples’ good works will always be overshadowed by the monstrosity that will keep growing long after he’s gone.

DEP “regulators” who approved the expansion during an ongoing investigation of the landfill by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office can’t be trusted to keep Keystone honest, so the job falls to the landfill’s neighbors. Time to be a pain in the can.

When the landfill stinks up your neighborhood or your kids’ schoolyard or public park, file a formal complaint with DEP. When rumbling trucks spread dust and crumble your streets, file a formal complaint with DEP. When landfill gulls “paint” your lawn furniture, file a formal complaint with DEP. Rinse and repeat.

When DEP gave Keystone the go-ahead to bury our region in trash, it gave the public a green light to bury the agency in complaints. If (when) your complaints are ignored, take them to your mayors, councils, supervisors and county commissioners. Reach out to me or someone else at The Times-Tribune.

Then pass your complaints on to elected state and federal officials. Demand regulation that reflects their rhetoric. Drop a line to the world’s most famous Scranton native. His snail mail address is:

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20500

Email: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Phone: 202-456-1111

Get involved. Get informed. Get mad.

Get to work. If we’re stuck with this time-lapse tragedy, its authors and enablers are stuck with us. Pile it on.

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Scranton TImes Editorial Board's Take on Expansion Approval

The Editorial Board at the The Scranton Times-Tribune lays out the exact problem at DEP - it is a captured agency fighting on behalf of expanding polluting industries instead of the citizens it is designed to protect. The title is, sadly, directly on point: "Your state government not at work."

An excerpt: "It’s known as regulatory capture — when the legislative, legal and regulatory machinery of government is in thrall to regulated industries rather than to protecting the public from them."

The entire editorial (and link to the online version) is below.

Your state government not at work

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The state Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s massive expansion is an equally massive failure of the state government to protect the public interest.

Allowing the huge dump to expand for four more decades and import another 94 million tons of garbage, mostly from other states, illustrates that state environmental regulation primarily is for the benefit of the regulated rather than for the greater good — democratic governance stood on its head.

It’s known as regulatory capture — when the legislative, legal and regulatory machinery of government is in thrall to regulated industries rather than to protecting the public from them. It has characterized the Legislature’s approach to the natural gas industry for decades, and to the landfill business for longer than that.

The DEP that approved this abomination is the same one that, a few years ago, could not detect odors emanating from the landfill that were obvious to anyone with a working nose.

And the agency went the extra mile this time to accommodate the landfill. It thumbed its nose at the public and the state attorney general by approving the project two weeks after the prosecutor’s office confirmed an investigation of the landfill, apparently regarding wastewater.

The DEP acknowledged but blithely dismissed issues raised by expansion opponents. To concerns that the addition of 188 billion pounds of garbage to the landfill might affect nearby property values, the DEP said an appraiser found that existing landfill operations have not done so. As for the future, well, don’t worry, says the DEP, the landfill has committed to a property value protection plan.

Lawmakers, local officials failDEP’s approval is rooted in state law that requires the bare minimum, mere regulatory compliance, rather than addressing whether projects that inherently degrade the environment, such as gas drilling or the addition of 126.5 million cubic yards to the landfill — truly serve the public interest.

Newly minted state Sen.-elect Marty Flynn, for example, a state representative for a decade, even now cannot bring himself to condemn the expansion despite its negative impact on his district. His campaign slogan was “he’s got your back,” which is true if you own a landfill.

He’s not alone. Dunmore Borough Council, until recently, let the landfill, which is owned by the wealthy and politically influential DeNaples family of Dunmore, do pretty much what it wanted because the borough receives host municipality fees. For example, council snoozed as landfill officials argued that it is not a dump, but a high-tech, state-of-the-art engineering marvel — yet, not a “structure” for the purpose of zoning.

Throop borough, too, has taken a hands-off approach. After the approval, council President Rich Kucharski deferred to the DEP and figuratively rubbed his hands over the prospect of the borough receiving $2 a ton for the next 40-plus years.

Friends of Lackawanna, landfill opponents who made a convincing case against its expansion, plan to appeal, but that is an uphill battle.

DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly noted that Keystone would have to obtain permit renewals every 10 years, which “theoretically” could result in early closure. “Theoretically” is a well-chosen word, since she could not cite a case where that actually has happened.

This disgraceful decision requires a recalibration of state environmental law, not only in terms of specific regulation but the larger question of the state government’s purpose if it is just going to get out of the way of powerful and harmful special interests.

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_2072f694...

DEP Approves KSL Expansion

The approval of the expansion was the lead story on every station last night. "If we can't get younger people to move to our area it's going to be a really big problem to try to develop our area as a forward-thinking place when we're literally surrounded by a mountain of trash. All of our local elections have been a clear sweep of anti-landfill candidates so the people of Dunmore and Northeast Pennsylvania did not want this." - Dunmore Mayor-Elect Max Conway

"The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection waved the middle finger at the citizens of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Instead of giving us a bright future, they've dumped our future." - Michele Dempsey, Core Member of Friends of Lackawanna.

https://www.wnep.com/.../523-bcf8c806-132d-4099-b620...

https://www.pahomepage.com/.../dep-approves-keystone.../

https://fox56.com/.../dep-approves-keystone-landfill...

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The Public Herald Investigates Keyston Landfill’s Radioactive Fracking Waste

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Link to Article

America Is Building Mountains of Radioactive Fracking Waste & the One in Joe Biden’s Hometown Is Under Criminal Investigation

by Emma Lichtwardt and Joshua Boaz Pribanic for Public Herald, edited by Melissa A. Troutman  June 1, 2021   |   Project: newsCOUP, Radioactive Rivers, TENORM Mountains  

PENNSYLVANIA’S LARGEST FRACKING WASTE LANDFILL IS UNDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION FOR DUMPING RADIOACTIVE LEACHATE

A COMMUNITY GROUP’S LETTER ABOUT A LANDFILL ACCEPTING FRACKING’S RADIOACTIVE WASTE CAUGHT THE ATTENTION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA ATTORNEY GENERAL’S ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES UNIT. 

In the heart of President Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, the Friends of Lackawanna are fighting the massive expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill, a waste dump that accepts radioactive material created by fracking for oil and natural gas.

“This is the future of our community at stake,” said Michele Dempsey from Friends of Lackawanna. “Our community lives or dies on this [expansion] decision, and so we gave it our hearts and souls.” Dempsey’s community is just one of many across America where, since fracking began, state and federal regulators have sent radioactive material to residual waste sites. As this waste piles up in public and private landfills, the size and risk of these “TENORM Mountains” looms large.

When Dempsey returns home from her office in neighboring Dunmore Borough after a demanding day of work, relaxing is far from her mind. She sits down, pulls out her laptop, and begins research for what she considers her “second job.” Across town, Sharon Cuff and Samantha Maloney are doing the same. Their jobs and routines are winding down for the day, but their second life unfurls here each night in front of computer screens and phones to find out, Has a landfill expansion ever been stopped? If so, how?”

In Dunmore, according to resident Sharon Cuff, three new anti-landfill candidates were newly elected in the May 2021 primary: Mark Conway (Mayor), William O’Malley (City Councilor) and Katherine Oven (City Councilor).

Dempsey, Cuff, and Maloney are part of Friends of Lackawanna, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting the health and safety of Lackawanna County from a proposed 165-foot vertical expansion of Keystone across 435 acres, which includes a 145-million cubic yard capacity increase. Any day now, the expansion could be approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), dramatically increasing the amount of radioactive material from fracking waste accepted at Keystone until it becomes higher than the Statue of Liberty.

Keystone has a dirty history of contaminating groundwater, alleged illegal dumping, and other faulty operations that have led to federal investigation and litigation. The latest is its trouble with landfill leachate, the contaminated liquid that leaches out of landfill debris after rainfall.

In December 2020, Keystone was punished by the DEP for contaminating groundwater with leachate and for storing it above regulatory limits, in violation of the Solid Waste Management Act. But records reviewed by Public Herald show that during the leachate investigation DEP did not require radiological testing of the leachate, despite outcry from Friends of Lackawanna.

According to public records, the community around Keystone has complained to the DEP about problems at the landfill 224 times since 1987. Yet, not one citizen complaint in 34 years has resulted in a violation enforcement or penalty from the Department. Public Herald’s decade of research and reporting about DEP complaint investigations has never revealed any other case where all of a community’s complaints about a particular facility or company resulted in zero enforcement actions.*

RADIOACTIVE RAINWATER — WHEN PROTECTORS DON’T PROTECT

Radioactive material within the fracking waste buried at Keystone and other landfills is water soluble, which means that when it rains, radionuclides like cancer-causing radium-226 end up in landfill leachate. After receiving little help from Pennsylvania DEP about radioactivity and other concerns, the Friends of Lackawanna stopped hearing from DEP all together. So the group reached out to their District Attorney, who referred them to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Environmental Crimes office.

“Due to the Department of Environmental Protection’s lack of response, I am turning to your office,” wrote Sam Maloney in a letter addressed to the Lackawanna County District Attorney. Referring to an alleged leachate dumping incident at Keystone in September 2016, Maloney’s letter seeks “to refer this matter to the Attorney General’s Office for a full investigation” of the “harmful effects on the air quality, safety and health of the citizens of Scranton, as well as the water quality of Meadow Brook Creek and the Lackawanna River.”

The City of Scranton and the Borough of Dunmore have also written letters to Roger Bellas, the former Keystone operator who is now the Waste Management Environmental Program manager for Pennsylvania DEP. Bellas is now a DEP state authority in Keystone’s expansion process and has handled all public comments on the matter. Letters from both municipalities express growing concerns about the impacts of the Keystone expansion project.

In November 2019, Friends of Lackawanna received notice from the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s office that the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office had assumed jurisdiction over the Keystone Sanitary Landfill leachate case.

PA Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office confirmed in a statement to Public Herald that it has an open investigation into Keystone, but wouldn’t comment further. The AG’s office would neither confirm nor deny reports about a second investigation about the Technically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (TENORM) from fracking waste that Keystone has accepted. DEP, when contacted by Public Herald, had no comment and redirected Public Herald to the AG’s office.

While the involvement of the AG’s office has been encouraging for some, there’s no promise of full accountability. The AG’s multi-year investigation of Pennsylvania’s management of fracking resulted in charges against oil and gas companies, but the misconduct by state officials, while admonished, did not lead to indictments.

During a May 25 press conference with Attorney General Shapiro’s office, Pennsylvania State Senator Katie Muth responded to Public Herald’s questions about DEP’s accountability. Muth, when asked what would be done to hold the DEP accountable, expressed concern over the DEP’s mishandling of the industries it’s supposed to regulate.

“I certainly think the DEP better, you know, put up or shut up because they say they’re here to protect,” Senator Muth said. “We the People pay the salaries for every government official, right? And so, their job is supposed to be to protect us and the environment. If you can’t do your jobs, then you’ve got to go.”

To date, very little information about the Keystone case has been released to Friends of Lackawanna from the AG’s office. But local sources say they’ve met with the AG’s investigators about Keystone’s leachate issues, including ones uncovered in Public Herald’s radioactive leachate investigation. Maloney explained that after two meetings with the AG’s office — the most recent at the end of April — she’s confident the Office is at least aware of and listening to their concerns. For Malony, it sends a message when the AG’s staffers know “what leachate is.”

But the clock is ticking for Friends of Lackawanna — everyday they wait to hear if DEP has approved Keystone’s expansion.

All of the following officials, organizations, and schools have openly opposed the Keystone landfill expansion: The Dunmore City Council, Dunmore Mayor Tim Burke, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, Scranton City Council, Mid Valley School District and Board, Scranton School Board, Pennsylvania Representative Kyle Mullins, U.S. Congressman Matt Cartwright, U.S. Senator Bob Casey, CFHJ & PA Sierra Club of Lackawanna County, and the Sierra Club.

LITTLE FEDERAL OVERSIGHT

On the national level, President Biden’s climate plan neglects the impacts that fracking’s oil and gas waste has on towns like Scranton and Dunmore – waste that will be produced for decades even after fracking ends. Biden’s climate plan fails to close gaping loopholes for the oil and gas industry that have existed since the 1980s, when the federal government exempted the industry’s waste from hazardous waste law. This creates the opportunity for landfills like Keystone, which are not officially authorized to handle hazardous waste, to continue accepting large amounts of radioactive, potentially hazardous material from oil and gas operations.

If Pennsylvania DEP approves Keystone’s proposed expansion, the landfill’s ability to operate will be extended until 2064, allowing thousands more tons of radioactive material from continued fracking development to be trafficked to the town where Biden grew up. This would make Keystone a new landmark – the landfill will become the tallest geographic feature in the area.

AMERICA IS BUILDING TENORM MOUNTAINS

Everyone knows that oil and gas wells produce oil and natural gas. But few people understand that these wells also produce radioactive material, or that this material is being disposed of in community landfills alongside household trash, as it is at Keystone.

Oil and gas waste materials contain TENORM (Technically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material), although some states simply refer to it as NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material). Essentially, what starts as naturally-occurring radioactive material (NORM) contained deep beneath the Earth’s crust is brought to the surface by human activities, such as fracking, to create TENORM. These processes can raise concentration levels of radioactive materials throughout operations and increase exposures to workers and the public.

One of the main radioactive elements in oil and gas TENORM waste is radium-226, an alpha-emitting isotope with a half-life of over 1,600 years that is known for its ability to cause cancer.

Though oil and gas waste contains hazardous materials, it’s not considered “hazardous” by the EPA. In 1988, the EPA declared that even though oil and gas waste contains toxic heavy metals, carcinogens, and radioactivity, regulating the waste as “hazardous” would cause “a severe economic impact on the industry and on oil and gas production in the U.S.,” so it exempt the industry from hazardous waste law under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

TENORM from oil and gas operations is also not covered by federal regulations governing radioactive material, including the Atomic Energy Act.

Radium from TENORM appears in high concentrations for several types of oil and gas waste, and the detections are higher for fracking waste streams that include sludge, drill cuttings, pipe scale, wastewater, and used equipment. According to radiation expert Andrew Gross, oil and gas workers have also transported TENORM into their homes, exposing their families to radioactivity they picked up on the job. Pennsylvania DEP’s own TENORM study from 2016 cites the same risks to workers if operations continue unabated.

The problem for communities (and watersheds) in the United States is that TENORM is piling up within landfills like Keystone across the country, and not just in fracking regions like Pennsylvania. The federal exemption for oil and gas waste means that fracking waste can be imported across state borders, sometimes to states where fracking is restricted – like New York State — or to where it’s just not viable, like Montana. (Join Public Herald’s Patreon for upcoming talks about TENORM in other states.)

Never before in the history of America has the country undertaken such a radioactive experiment, bringing massive amounts of carcinogenic material to the surface and depositing it inside populated areas.

TENORM MOUNTAINS MAP: HOW TENORM-LADEN LEACHATE FROM FRACKING WASTE GETS INTO PENNSYLVANIA & OHIO WATERS

KEYSTONE’S EXPANDING IMPACTS ON THE COMMUNITY

Keystone Landfill divides the city of Scranton and the Borough of Dunmore. It is a half mile from the nearest residential area and 1.7 miles from the Dunmore School District. Keystone is also only 800 feet away from a Dunmore reservoir, which serves as an emergency drinking water source and popular recreation area.

In addition to Keystone accepting rocky drill cuttings that can contain TENORM, the landfill was cleared by the DEP in 2014 to also accept drilling fluids from fracking sites. The liquid waste from fracking has particularly high levels of radium-226. DEP’s 2016 TENORM study found high levels of radium-226 in both conventional and unconventional oil and gas wastewaters. Every wastewater sample in the study exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) limit of 5 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) for combined radium in drinking water — some radium-226 levels were as high as 26,600 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) in the wastewater from fracked gas drilling sites.

For the Friends of Lackawanna, all of these concerns about Keystone could have ended in 2015, when the landfill’s Waste Management Permit was set to expire. This would have required that the landfill be closed and capped for good, which residents were eagerly awaiting. But before its time was up, Keystone submitted an application to the DEP Bureau of Solid Waste for an expansion to allow for an additional 125 million tons of waste, adding almost a half-century more disposal to what could become the state’s largest trash mountain.

When Dempsey first heard about the expansion project “The blood boiled in my body,” she told Public Herald, “and I just couldn’t shut up about it. Anybody who would listen to me, I talked to.”

Keystone has since been identified by Public Herald as one of 30 Pennsylvania landfills accepting fracking waste and producing leachate that’s making its way into public waterways.** Some of these facilities were never mentioned by the DEP when Public Herald first asked the agency for a list of all Pennsylvania landfills accepting fracking waste.

Under Pennsylvania law, landfills can send their fracking-contaminated leachate to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), like local sewage facilities. Oftentimes, these treatment plants are not equipped to properly eliminate radioactive material before dumping their effluent into rivers. The result is a statewide system that can discharge radioactive residuals from fracking into waterways from at least 18 WWTPs across Pennsylvania — including the Scranton Sewage Authority, now Pennsylvania American Water Company, which accepted leachate from Keystone for years.

But in 2019, Keystone began doing something different —  it got approval from the DEP to operate its own on-site leachate treatment systems. Keystone installed a reverse osmosis treatment system and obtained permits allowing it to discharge treated leachate directly into two streams that run alongside the landfill (Eddy Creek and Little Roaring Brook), in addition to sending it to the Pennsylvania American Water facility in Scranton, which discharges into the Lackawanna River.

According to a 2016 letter from DEP, Keystone would be restricted to releasing only 1 pCi/L of combined radium 226 & 228 since “the facility accepts fracking waste.” However, a final permit for Keystone to discharge waste into waterways (sent to Public Herald from DEP in May 2021) does not list a limitation for radium.

PA American Water’s discharge permit also does not require monitoring for radium. When asked by Public Herald whether TENORM would be considered in the expansion permitting process, the DEP provided a written statement saying, “TENORM is material that is taken into consideration and analyzed when DEP reviews permit applications, including a permit application regarding landfills.”

But Marco Kaltofen, an expert who traces where radiological substances end up over time and whether they’re disposed of correctly, told Public Herald, “We’re not making treatment systems for radioactive waste, we’re making transit systems. We’re moving [it] from one place or one medium to another without actually dealing with the problem at hand.”

“Radioactivity was created when the earth was formed millions of years ago, and a few hours [of treatment] in a public treatment plant isn’t going to make much difference,” Kaltofen says. “It’s a web of added radioactivity, and so far, we’ve only figured out how to spread it, and we haven’t figured out how to really treat it.”

TENORM SPECULATION & LACK OF REGULATIONS

The Department has always known about TENORM problems from oil and gas waste. In 1991, DEP released a study on [TE]NORM in oil and gas development that pointed to a need for state regulations and restrictions. But, no one took serious action.

Today, all landfills like Keystone that accept TENORM waste from fracking operations can use it to cover trash at the landfill. For the last decade, DEP has been allowing, even promoting, this “beneficial use” of oil and gas waste as a way to prevent trash from blowing off the site.

The state’s 2016 TENORM study made it clear that, “Because landfills accept natural gas industry wastes such as drill cuttings and treatment sludge that may contain TENORM, there is a potential for leachate from those facilities to also contain TENORM.” In the study, all of the testing conducted by the state of landfill leachate showed evidence of TENORM.

In an article from The Times-Tribune published May 20, 2021, about the AG’s investigation into Keystone it quoted landfill consultant Al Magnotta as saying that there is “absolutely no fracking waste in Keystone” and that the well drill cuttings accepted by the landfill are not at all related to fracking. Magnotta’s statement uses a game of semantics that drill cuttings are not the same as “fracking waste” — though the drill cuttings are a waste product sent to Keystone from fracking operations in the state.

“We do not take [fracking waste] … Anybody who says we do is just absolute freaking nonsense,” Magnotta was quoted by The Times-Tribune as saying.

Keystone is authorized to accept up to 7,000 tons of waste per day, and DEP approximates that 700 tons of TENORM-laden drill cuttings are disposed of at the Keystone landfill per day. Again, DEP’s study reported TENORM detected in every drill cutting sampled.

A Keystone Sanitary Landfill Health Consultation published by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said it found, “At a site visit in 2015, landfill management characterized the composition of accepted waste as approximately 77% municipal solid wastes, 10% drill cuttings from unconventional natural gas drilling operations, 6% sludge and residual wastes, 4% flood wastes, and 3% construction and demolition wastes.”

Dempsey says the cumulative effect of TENORM disposal at Keystone has never been studied. She asked landfill representatives at a town meeting if they had any idea what the cumulative effect might be of radioactive disposal at Keystone, “They had no idea,” she said.  The 2016 DEP TENORM study sampled landfills, but did not disclose which ones.

So exactly how much TENORM is accumulating at Keystone? No one really knows for sure. All the waste is supposed to be checked for TENORM, but DEP-required monitoring at the landfill has been criticized by experts like Dr. Julie Weatherington-Rice, who says: “Pennsylvania is counting on smoke and mirrors for protection because they’re not using the right test, and they’re not using the right equipment.”

John Mellow, who worked at DEP for 30 years in the hazardous sites cleanup program, said that after working for DEP, he’s troubled by the agency’s handling of Keystone and wants to see firmer data if DEP is going to claim Keystone isn’t causing environmental and health problems.

“My issue is not to cry, ‘The sky is falling,’ but to make sure that there’s actually data to show that there’s no problem, not just speculation as DEP has done,” Mellow said.

RESIDENTS QUESTION TENORM EXPOSURE

In the past, Keystone sent a maximum of 150,000 gallons per day of leachate to the Scranton wastewater treatment plant.

Experts have told Public Herald that the treatment methods used onsite at sewage facilities are not equipped to remove TENORM from landfill leachate. There is logical reason to believe that for the past six years or longer, the Scranton sewer authority could have been releasing TENORM from Keystone Landfill into public waters through the sewer system, even if the leachate was “treated” – especially considering the facility’s discharge permit does not include monitoring for TENORM.

“If [radium] is water soluble and it’s coming through an archaic sewer system, it exposes all of us,” Maloney told Public Herald. “If it’s rainy and there’s an overflow, it’s coming into, at a minimum, Meadow Brook Creek, and moreover, it could be coming directly into our houses.”

“Do the citizens of Scranton whose homes have been flooded from discharge from their drains have radionuclides in their homes? Is leachate mixed in with this? How dangerous is this to us?” asks Maloney.

Senator Muth, when asked by Public Herald how the state would deal with it’s radioactive leachate problem, referred to the permitting of landfills to dispose of the radioactive leachate as a “loophole in the law” that needs to be addressed. Part of the problem, Muth said, is that the DEP won’t provide the state with stable, reliable data on how many landfills accept the waste.

“This is almost like organized crime … I don’t know how else to explain why this is happening. I don’t think this is gross incompetence anymore,” Senator Muth said to Public Herald after seeing Public Herald’s previous reporting on the DEP’s failure to report 17 landfills and four WWTPs accepting and discharging TENORM-laden leachate. “It’s an epic failure of a government entity that is funded by taxpayers … You can’t say you’re doing your job and everything is fine if you’re not even sure where this stuff is being discharged, you’re not even sure where it’s being dumped.”

Senator Muth said she’s “confident” that the Attorney General’s office is looking at the issue.

KEYSTONE DENIES ILLEGAL DUMPING 

On September 26, 2016, a strange smell enveloped Dunmore. The odor was so foul, it required the complete 3 a.m. evacuation of a local hotel and St. Joseph’s, a center for medically fragile and severely disabled adults.

“People said they couldn’t sleep, they couldn’t even be in their houses,” Dempsey recalls. “It was just that terrible. The landfill general manager admitted that night that they were running leachate down the line. But the next day, they retracted that statement and said it was all a mistake.”

The Scranton-based Times-Tribune reported that Keystone’s consulting engineer, Albert Magnotta, claimed that the liquid causing the smell was not treated leachate from Keystone. However, the day the odor was detected, Magnotta said, the landfill had discharged treated leachate through an emergency line through the Green Ridge neighborhood due to maintenance on a pump in the facility.

During storm events when the sewer is full, excess waste is sent through a combined sewer overflow (CSO) called Outfall 2. Most modern sewer systems collect stormwater separately from sewage wastes to prevent overflow problems. However, in antiquated systems like the one being used by Keystone and the Sewer Authority, these two waste streams are still combined, which has led to problems for local residents. According to Friends of Lackawanna, stormwater runoff, sewage, industrial stormwater waste, and Keystone’s leachate all go directly into the Lackawanna River via Outfall 2, avoiding any treatment by the Scranton Sewer Authority (Now owned by Pennsylvania American Water Company).*** The Scranton Sewer Authority claimed to Public Herald in a recent email that it is “in no way connected to the Keystone Landfill” and “would have no comment.”

The Green Ridge Neighborhood Association filed a lawsuit against the Scranton Sewer Authority — which in the next year would be sold to Pennsylvania American Water — regarding the sudden permit amendment allowing the use of the previously unapproved Outfall 2. In 2016, the case was dismissed after too much time had passed with no action.

Friends of Lackawanna says the agencies whose duty it is to help citizens answer difficult questions are providing next to no help, specifically the DEP. They have been asking difficult questions on behalf of their community and its safety for the past six years and speculate that the DEP may not be adequately staffed to handle the problems that the landfill is producing.

“They can’t handle everything that is being thrown at them, so [DEP] just believes what the landfill says,” Sharon Cuff stated, “so maybe it’s staff cuts or lack of hands, but that is not our fault. We are the community they are here to protect, and they won’t help us.”

The Friends of Lackawanna say they are not backing down regardless of the outcome of the Attorney General’s investigation. “It’s a love for our area. The reason we’re all here is because we love it, and we’re trying to protect it. Our motivation is protecting our community,” said Dempsey. Until the wrongful discharge of leachate is corrected, the expansion is stopped, and the community feels heard by DEP, the Friends of Lackawanna say they will do whatever it takes to keep their community safe.

 

Jake Conley contributed to this report

*DEP inspection data for Keystone shows 224 complaints were issued by the community about the landfill. The data shows a record of 716 inspections at Keystone since 1987. Of these inspections, the majority were either routine inspections or prompted by community complaints. Only 22 of the total 719 inspections noted in landfill violations, and not a single one of 224 community complaints against the landfill prompted a violation. Since 1987, only 3.2% of DEP landfill inspections found any violations of code or conduct.

**Based on data provided by the PA DEP, Public Herald’s August 2019 report uncovered 13 landfills in PA that receive radioactive fracking waste. In a report published August 5, 2020, Public Herald identified 17 additional landfills accepting oil and gas waste, bringing the total known number to 30 facilities. Keystone is one of the 17 sites that went undisclosed by the PA DEP.

*** In 1987, the Scranton Sewer Authority agreed to accept leachate from Keystone for treatment once a pretreatment facility at Keystone had been completed. According to a 1991 Gannett Fleming report to determine a feasible leachate line between Keystone and the Sewer Authority, when the community found out that leachate was going to be pumped through their neighborhood on it’s way to the sewer authority, they expressed serious concerns. After the community’s largely negative response, the City began to question the validity of the 1987 agreement due to health concerns. Ultimately, they withdrew from the agreement. Keystone sued the City for enforcement.

In 1990, a settlement agreement reached between Keystone, the City, and the Scranton Sewer Authority led to the construction of a separate, dedicated transport line to carry leachate from the landfill to the sewage treatment. According to this settlement, only the new dedicated line would be used for leachate and not the old gravity line leading to Outfall 2, as the community had demanded back in 1987. If Keystone intended to ever use the gravity line for leachate, they were to have it secured by permit, which at the time of the 2015 foul smell and local evacuations problems had not been done. The gravity line is still currently in use.

****Two months after the incident at Outfall 2 in December 2015, an EPA investigation was released officially stating that the landfill did not have a permit to send leachate down the unsecured gravity line to Outfall 2 and into the Lackawanna River. The Scranton Sewer Authority responded to this claim by quickly changing the permitting around the gravity line in question, ultimately claiming that the line had in fact always been safe for use.

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Scranton Times Article: Sen. Casey opposes landfill expansion as decision looms

U.S. Senator Bob Casey

has been against this expansion since the moment it was proposed. So too is just about every other elected official, from local to state to federal, has been as well. Will this matter to DEP?

“That almost clean sweep across the board should tell DEP everything they need to know about what the citizenry of Northeast Pennsylvania think” - Pat Clark in today's article.

Put simply, these elected officials are speaking on our behalf - in other words, on behalf of the citizens the DEP's mission it is to protect.

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_696dd67c...

With a decision looming for Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s proposed expansion, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey once again appealed to state regulators to prevent the landfill from piling trash for the next four decades.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is in the final stage of its review of the landfill in Dunmore and Throop’s Phase III expansion, spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said in an email. The DEP could approve the expansion of the DeNaples-owned landfill by the end of the week, but Connolly does not believe there will be a decision by then, as the DEP is still reviewing the landfill’s plans. The landfill submitted its initial application in 2014. If approved, the landfill would continue to accept waste for 42.4 years until 2064, totaling an additional 94,072,940 tons, according to revised final plans submitted to the DEP in March. That’s the equivalent of about 225,865 Air Force Ones at takeoff for long-range missions, weighing 833,000 pounds each, according to Boeing.

The DEP announced April 30 it had begun its technical review stage of Keystone’s proposed expansion — a process that will ultimately render a decision on whether the landfill can proceed with its controversial expansion. The DEP reviewed Keystone’s plans and sent it a letter Sept. 8 citing dozens of technical deficiencies, asking for clarification, updates and additional information on more than 60 items in the expansion plans.

Keystone responded Nov. 25, initiating a 60-business-day window for the DEP to respond.

That window closes this week.

According to a DEP fact sheet on the landfill, the department has 60 business days to either approve the expansion or issue a pre-denial letter, giving Keystone one more chance to respond. The DEP would then have 30 days to review the response and issue a final decision.

However, Connolly noted the DEP also has the option to ask for more information from Keystone or offer more comments on the landfill’s November response.

Casey cited the impending decision as his rationale for sending the letter to DEP secretary Patrick McDonnell on Thursday.“As the Department of Environmental Protection nears a final decision regarding the expansion of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, I write to reiterate my opposition to this permit application,” he wrote.

It marked the second time in the past year Casey asked the DEP to reject the expansion. In June, he joined officials at the local, state and federal levels in opposing the expansion during a public comment period. Other officials included U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-8, Moosic; state Rep. Kyle Mullins, D-112, Blakely; Dunmore Mayor Timothy Burke, Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti, members of Dunmore Borough Council, Scranton City Council, the Scranton School Board and the Mid Valley School Board. Outgoing state Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald, has previously opposed the expansion.

Attempts to reach landfill officials were unsuccessful Friday.

Renewed concerns

In his letter, Casey raised concerns about two assessments of the expansion. He said he was concerned that an April 2019 health consultation report by the state Department of Health and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry failed to measure the full health risks of the expansion.

The report was only conducted over three months and did not include continuous monitoring, he said. The 129-page report included analysis of 87 air samples collected intermittently at three locations around the landfill from January to April 2016.Additionally, there were no studies conducted on the expansion’s impact on potential groundwater and soil contamination, Casey said.

Groundwater that could be contaminated isn’t used for public drinking water, according to the report.

While the report did not include testing for soil and groundwater contamination, Connolly said the DEP has over 30 years of data that has been collected from the groundwater monitoring well around the facility. The DEP reviews quarterly groundwater reports from the landfill, she said.

Casey also addressed a statement in the DEP’s July 2019 environmental assessment of the expansion, which determined the benefits “clearly outweigh” the known and potential harms. As part of the assessment, the DEP reported the harms associated with the expansion are already associated with the existing landfill, though the harms would be extended.

“Since 2015, I have been contacted by hundreds of constituents from Lackawanna County, including local officials, school boards and community groups, expressing opposition to the expansion of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill,” Casey wrote. “Many expressed concerns regarding the existing impacts of the landfill, not just environmental risks but also concerns about quality of life and congestion, traffic and vehicle safety risks associated with a major expansion of the landfill.”

Casey pointed to portions of Dunmore that fall under DEP-designated Environmental Justice (EJ) Areas, which are census tracts where 20% or more people live at or below the federal poverty line, and/or 30% or more identify as a nonwhite minority.“The burden of this expansion is likely to fall disproportionately on the surrounding EJ community,” Casey wrote.

Impending decision

Friends of Lackawanna, a grassroots anti-landfill expansion group, is grateful for Casey’s consistent support, group leader Pat Clark said.“Sen. Casey — he was the first politician to come out against this,” Clark said. “He did a press conference in 2015, and he’s still issuing his steadfast and unwavering opposition to this expansion.”

Clark believes the widespread opposition from school boards to elected officials at the federal level shows the opposition of the constituents who elected those officials to voice their concerns.

“That almost clean sweep across the board should tell DEP everything they need to know about what the citizenry of Northeast Pennsylvania think,” Clark said, later adding, “This isn’t a (not-in-my-backyard) argument. We’ve had 40 years of doing this. We’ve done our fair share.”

They will find out the effect of the letters of opposition when the DEP makes its final decision, he said.

“How much impact do these letters have?” Clark asked. “I don’t know. We’ll know that pretty soon.”


Sen. Robert Casey Reaffirms Opposition to Landfill Expansion

On February 18, 2021, U.S. Senator Bob Casey sent an updated letter of opposition to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection regarding the Keystone Sanitary Landfill's proposed expansion. You can read it here. This letter leaves no doubt on where Senator Casey stands on this issue (and his opposition hasn't wavered since his first press conference on it back in 2015). We are grateful for Senator Casey's ongoing and dedicated support.

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Op-Ed: Pat Clark December 13, 2020

In today's The Scranton Times-Tribune Op-Ed, FOL's Pat Clark makes the case: one of the Biden Plan's main goals is Environmental Justice. If our country is going to give EJ the seat at the table it has long deserved, the KSL expansion is the perfect proving ground. The landfill's expansion, in a designated Environmental Justice area, on Biden's hometown turf, must be denied.

"...there is no better place to start than the president’s hometown. Locals often joke that all roads lead to Scranton. With the inevitable spotlight presidential attention will bring, let’s hope those roads aren’t filled with garbage trucks for the next 40 years."

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_4f85dc8c...

Proposed landfill expansion an environmental injustice

BY PATRICK CLARK GUEST COLUMNIST

If you want something done, ask a busy person. If you want to locate or expand a polluting business, ask a community already filled with them. Benjamin Franklin is known for one of those quotes. The other has plagued our region for decades.

Environmental justice embodies the principle that minority and low-income communities shoulder a disproportionate burden caused by pollution. Over time, the cumulative impact of concentrated pollution destroys a community’s economic outlook and health profile.

Thirty years after the birth of the environmental justice movement, Northeast Pennsylvania faces its own crusade with Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s proposed mega-expansion in a designated environmental justice area.

However, with the election of President-elect Joe Biden, this expansion is no longer just a local or state issue. It is now a national issue.

Biden’s connection to Scranton is well-established. He grew up on North Washington Avenue, less than two miles from the landfill as the crow flies. Though that proximity is an interesting geographic tie to the landfill, his incoming administration’s stated policy on environmental justice inexorably binds the two together.

Biden’s plan on environmental justice recognizes “that communities of color and low-income communities have faced disproportionate harm from climate change and environmental contaminants for decades.” Its goal is “to clean up our communities and provide new opportunities to those that have been disproportionately burdened by pollution.” The landfill’s proposed expansion, in an environmental justice area next to Biden’s hometown, is the perfect case to highlight his new policy objectives.

Over the past 30 years, Keystone has accepted more than 30 million tons of garbage. It now seeks a permit to expand its lifespan by 40 more years and bury 100 million new tons of trash. What is already one of the largest landfills in the nation seeks to triple in size; a previously unheard-of request for the state given the landfill’s already enormous size and proximity to homes, schools and parks.

The landfill is in an environmental justice area as defined by Pennsylvania due to a concentration of low-income population surrounding it. Residents of Northeast Pennsylvania, led by Friends of Lackawanna, have fought this expansion since day one, including presentations and meetings with environmental justice agencies. The Pennsylvania Office of Environmental Justice has noble goals, stating on its website that, “environmental justice ensures that everyone has an equal seat at the table.” Unfortunately, to date, those goals are mere words, not results.

It is expected that Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection will issue its decision on the landfill’s expansion request in early 2021. Since the proposal’s submission in 2014, the only thing growing faster than the mountain of trash are the documented reasons to deny it: ongoing groundwater pollution issues, air contaminants, subsurface fires, radioactive fracking waste, leachate spills and other issues.

What has also transpired since the original submission is a renewed focus on state-level environmental initiatives. In September, New Jersey passed one of the nation’s strongest environmental justice laws. It grants regulators the right to review cumulative impacts on public health or environmental risks based on “combined past, present and reasonably foreseeable” future pollution. In October, Connecticut strengthened its regulations.

Pennsylvania is also considering doing the same and the change is badly needed. The state’s current approach to environmental justice is informational and advisory only — no action, only talk.

We already import more garbage than any state and more than 60% of Keystone’s waste comes from out of state. As the environmental justice movement grows, so too will the list of states adopting progressive measures. If Pennsylvania does not match our neighbors, our self-defeating lead in imports will not end at trash — we’ll simply become the state that imports pollution.

Weeks before the DEP is scheduled to make its final decision on the landfill expansion, Biden will be sworn in as the next president.

One of the largest decisions his hometown region will ever face, impacting multiple generations, is the expansion of the landfill. A denial of this expansion will showcase the momentum of the environmental justice movement at large and directly supports the Biden plan’s goals. Conversely, allowing this expansion would mark this environmental justice area as another sad, cautionary tale where help came too little, too late.

If the country is going to give environmental justice the seat at the table it deserves and the incoming administration follow through on its stated goals in that respect, there is no better place to start than the president’s hometown. Locals often joke that all roads lead to Scranton. With the inevitable spotlight presidential attention will bring, let’s hope those roads aren’t filled with garbage trucks for the next 40 years.

Landfill, DEP reach agreement to accept waste in lieu of $113,000 fine

"It's a win win!" Says Al Magnotta on behalf of polluters everywhere.

Full article below on how the Landfill and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection DEP work together to frame a fine for repeated violations as a benevolent act. Merry Christmas, NEPA.

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_650aaf23...

Landfill, DEP reach agreement to accept waste in lieu of $113,000 fine

The landfill will accept 2,500 tons of illegally dumped waste in Taylor at a lower rate, totaling the cost of its fines

BY FRANK WILKES LESNEFSKY STAFF WRITER

In lieu of nearly $113,000 in fines for violations involving leachate storage and groundwater degradation, the Keystone Sanitary Landfill will accept about 2,500 tons of waste illegally dumped in Taylor.

The state Department of Environmental Protection and the landfill in Dunmore and Throop reached an agreement where Keystone will take in 2,509 tons of construction and demolition debris that had been dumped at A Plus Power Washing, 15 S. Keyser Ave., according to the agreement executed Friday. In 2016, Michael Lee Stine of Northampton County was charged with dumping more than 23,000 tons of the debris in four counties, including 8,200 tons at the Taylor business. At the time, the DEP estimated it would cost $459,200 to clean up.

Stine admitted to dumping the debris in 2017, according to the DEP. He pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal mischief — third-degree felonies — and five counts of unlawful contact, according to court paperwork. He was sentenced to 10 years of probation. Stine has not removed the debris, according to the DEP.

The DEP entered into a similar agreement with the Grand Central Sanitary Landfill in Northampton County last month. Instead of paying a $50,500 fine, the landfill agreed to take in about 1,000 tons of waste that Stine had illegally dumped in the county, according to the DEP.

Keystone’s fines stem from three violations.

On Nov. 9, 2016, the DEP said it issued the landfill a notice of violation after determining leachate had leaked from the liner in one of Keystone’s lagoons, seeping into and impacting the groundwater. Leachate is the garbage juice that percolates through piles of trash. The DEP determined the groundwater had degraded. Both the leakage and groundwater degradation violate state law.

Landfill consultant Al Magnotta emphasized Friday that there was no public health issue stemming from the water degradation.

The DEP also issued a notice of violation Sept. 20, 2018, citing the landfill for storing too much leachate in its lagoons. The landfill is supposed to regularly be at 25% or less of its total storage capacity for leachate to account for storms or issues with the leachate treatment system, DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said in an email. The landfill is allowed to temporarily exceed 25% in the event of storms or treatment issues as long as it works to lower the amount of leachate in a timely manner, she said.

However, for the majority of time between October 2016 and August 2018, the landfill’s leachate storage totals ranged between 27.72% and 85.77% of total capacity, according to the DEP.

The landfill has addressed the violations, including reconstructing its lagoons and lowering the amount of leachate stored in them, the DEP said. The DEP determined the landfill had reduced its leachate storage below 25% on Feb. 18, 2019.

The violations totaled $112,905 in fines. Instead of paying the fines, the landfill will accept the waste in Taylor for $45 per ton, according to the agreement. Normally, the landfill would charge about $65 to $70 per ton, Magnotta said.

“I think it’s a win-win all the way around,” he said.

Noting a fire at the site several years ago, Taylor Borough Manager Dan Zeleniak was enthusiastic about the work.

“This is a good thing if we can get rid of it. It’s a mess,” he said. “It’s just waiting to catch fire again.”

The landfill has until Dec. 11, 2021, to fulfill its agreement.

The DEP will have until the week of Feb. 22 to either approve the landfill's expansion or send the landfill a pre-denial letter

The Landfill just filed its reply to the DEP's most recent technical deficiency letter. It's over 800 pages. As stated in today's The Scranton Times-Tribune this is KSL's "latest attempt to substitute complexity for sanity."

We are getting close to DEP decision time on the expansion and we'll be updating everyone regularly from now through the decision.

You can read the full story online or below.

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

Landfill responds to DEP technical deficiency letter on 42-year expansion, begins countdown for final decision

The DEP will have until the week of Feb. 22 to either approve the landfill's expansion or send the landfill a pre-denial letter

BY FRANK WILKES LESNEFSKY STAFF WRITER

The state Department of Environmental Protection could make a decision on the Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s proposed 42-year expansion by the end of February.

The landfill’s Phase III expansion moved into the DEP’s final phase of reviews — the technical review phase — April 30, initiating the process that will ultimately decide the controversial expansion’s fate. The DEP reviewed Keystone plans, and on Sept. 8, cited dozens of technical deficiencies, asking for clarification, updates and additional information on more than 60 items in the landfill’s expansion plans. Keystone submitted its initial application for expansion in 2014.

In its deficiency letter to the landfill, the DEP noted deficiencies including Keystone’s contingency plan, facility plan, eventual closure plan, groundwater, odor control and leachate generation.

On Nov. 25, the DEP received Keystone’s 838-page response to the technical deficiency letter, giving the organization 60 business days to review Keystone’s response, DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said in an email. Taking holidays into account, the DEP’s due date will fall during the week of Feb. 22, Connolly said.

Attempts to reach landfill officials were unsuccessful Tuesday.

When the DEP completes its second technical design review, it has two options, according to a landfill fact sheet. If the DEP determines the landfill’s response is sufficient, it will approve the application. If it is insufficient, the landfill will receive a pre-denial letter, giving it another opportunity to respond.

Following the landfill’s response, the DEP would then hold a final technical review and issue a decision within 30 days, according to the fact sheet.

The landfill in Dunmore and Throop would close in 2064, with closure plans including planting grass and other vegetation and offering the land to Throop and Dunmore boroughs as a green-space buffer between the Casey Highway and the towns, according to supplemental information Keystone previously submitted to the DEP.

In total, the 42.41-year expansion would bring in 94,085,925 tons of municipal solid waste, or about 188 billion pounds, according to the landfill’s response. The waste would total 126,496,981 cubic yards, or enough garbage to bury nearly 5,930 professional football fields under 10 feet of trash — high enough to reach the crossbars of the goal posts.

Pat Clark, a leader of anti-landfill expansion grassroots group Friends of Lackawanna, called the landfill’s more than 800-page response “their latest attempt to substitute complexity for sanity.”

“After six years, all this does is magnify how much risk is at hand and how much of our future is at stake,” he said in an emailed statement.

Clark also pointed to the landfill’s location and noted multiple previous revisions to Keystone’s plans due to deficiencies.

“A mega landfill in the middle of a community will never make residents healthier nor improve the environment,” he said. “That fact cannot be changed no matter how many ways you attempt to spin it.”

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_0bdbcb1d...

Supreme Court won't hear appeal of Keystone Sanitary Landfill case

[NOTE: this is not related to DEP's decision on the landfill's attempted expansion. DEP is still evaluating it and has not issued its ruling. This is specific to our ongoing zoning matter.]

*Background*

Earlier this year, we petitioned the PA Supreme Court to hear an appeal on our zoning case that has been winding its way through the system for nearly 6 years. We suspected it was a long shot but it was worth the time and effort in our ongoing efforts to stop this expansion. And yes, landfills are still structures. And yes, structures are controlled by height restrictions of the zoning code. Ultimately the courts decided to look at the procedure instead of getting to the merits. So be it. For now.

This is a complicated issue and the nuance of explaining it will cause just about anyone to stop scrolling immediately. But in an effort to summarize it, here are a few points as well as the content of the article below.

*How we view this ruling*

The Supreme Court's decision, though frustrating, is not unexpected. This entire zoning process, beginning nearly 6 years ago, has been convoluted. What began as an attempt to clarify and enforce a known point in Pennsylvania law - that Landfills are Structures and therefore subject to height restrictions in the zoning code - has taken a long and winding detour down never-ending legal procedural roads.

*What's next relative to zoning?*

It remains to be seen whether all legal questions relative to the Landfill and zoning are over. It depends on what actions KSL chooses to, or needs to, take relative to zoning. As we always do, we will continue to evaluate all options.

*How does this tie into the big picture & the expansion?*

The entire point of this 6 year battle is the expansion and we look forward to the DEP's ruling on it. We are confident the DEP has no choice but to deny the expansion given the recent technical review deficiency letter. That letter is the 5th issued by DEP during this expansion evaluation and it has 10 pages full of over 60 items which KSL has not yet answered. At this point, the only thing growing faster than the massive pile of trash visible for all to see and smell is the list of reasons for DEP to deny it.

*Link to article*

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_185de826...

Supreme Court won't hear appeal of Keystone Sanitary Landfill case

BY TERRIE MORGAN-BESECKER STAFF WRITER Oct 21, 2020

The state Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a court ruling upholding a finding that the Keystone Sanitary Landfill is not a structure subject to a height restrictions.

Friends of Lackawanna, a group that opposes the proposed expansion of the landfill, has battled Keystone since 2015 over whether Dunmore’s zoning ordinance, which limits the height of structures to 50 feet, applies to landfills.

The group contends the landfill’s trash pile constitutes a structure and it therefore must comply. Keystone maintains the ordinance applies only to buildings.

In February, the state Commonwealth Court upheld a lower court ruling that favored Keystone. The court did not rule on the merits of the case, but instead dismissed it on a procedural grounds.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear an appeal of that ruling ends the case, said Jeff Belardi, attorney for Keystone.

Pat Clark, one of the leaders of Friends of Lackawanna, said the group is disappointed, but expected the court would not accept the case.

Clark said the group is considering its options. It’s possible it may be able to file a new court challenge. That will be dependent on whether Keystone must file for additional zoning permits.

Keystone is continuing to work to obtain the approval for the expansion from the state Department of Environmental Protection. The expansion would allow the landfill — located in Dunmore and Throop — to continue bringing in trash until 2064, totaling an additional 94,072,940 tons of waste, or 188 billion pounds, according to the landfill’s 42.4-year expansion plans.

DEP recently notified the landfill it needs to correct more than 60 deficiencies in its expansion application.

Belardi said DEP is seeking clarification on a number of issues. The landfill is in the process of responding to the questions.

“That does not mean the permit is sunk. It means they have to give DEP more information on things they identified,” Belardi said.