Optimism aired on landfill limits by Richard Yost

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

Full letter below titled "Optimism aired on landfill limits"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shapiro Must fund DEP by Representative Greg Vitali

A great guest column by Rep. Greg Vitali

"Shapiro must take a leadership role if DEP is to carry out its mission to protect public health and the environment. Proposing a budget on March 7 that significantly increases the department’s funding and staffing would be a good first step."

Lack of funding is no excuse for allowing massive landfill expansions. But it could help in the oversight of the public health.

Even DEP seems to agree when it stated: “… to effectively administer increased oversight … DEP will require additional resources … particularly more field inspectors and enforcement personnel…”

http://times-tribune.com/.../article_aeba9be8-064c-5193...

Dump odor smelling salts for state DEP [ Scranton Times Editorial Board]

Dump odor smelling salts for state DEP

Now that the state Department of Environmental Resources has cleared its sinuses, perhaps it will open its eyes.

The regulator, which long had been impervious to noxious odors emanating from the massive and growing Keystone Sanitary Landfill, recently cited the landfill nine times for odor violations in response to 230 complaints.

Tellingly, not all of those complainants live near the landfill. The complaints came not only from Dunmore and Throop, the two boroughs that host the landfill, but from Scranton, south of the landfill; Archbald and Olyphant, north of the landfill; and Elmhurst, Jefferson and Roaring Brook townships, to the landfill’s east and southeast.

Over the past several years, the DEP has fielded hundreds of such complaints but infamously has failed to detect the noxious odors, while concluding the landfill and its planned massive expansion would not have a negative effect on public health or property values.

Ideally, the citations indicate not only that the DEP has regained its olfactory senses, but that the agency has begun to take a more realistic look at the landfill’s adverse impact on the region.

The DEP irresponsibly has approved the landfill’s massive, 40-year-plus expansion plan, under which it would add more than 90 million tons of mostly out-of-state garbage to the millions of tons that already create the smell that the DEP finally has managed to detect.

If the landfill stinks now, what will it smell like 90 million tons of garbage from now?

And this is not the case of the landfill having a bad day or a bad week. The complaints that led to the citation were filed from Sept. 1 through Jan. 20.

Most of that period also predates the recent change in the state administration. But Gov. Josh Shapiro, during his gubernatorial campaign and during his six years as attorney general, was critical of the DEP’s performance in several areas.

There is no reason to believe the agency rose above that performance when it approved the landfill expansion, which local civic and environmental advocates have appealed to the Environmental Hearing Board.

Shapiro should order the DEP to review that unwarranted approval, taking the odor citations as a whiff of long-term inevitably if the expansion proceeds, rather than a one-time regulatory violation.

Notice of Violations [FINALLY] Issued to KSL

“KSL FAILED.....”
— Rachel Miller Compliance Specialist Waste Management Program

Below is a Notice of Violation (NOV) that NERO Waste Management sent to Keystone Landfill this week for the odor complaints the DEP has received since mid-September. They were over 230 complaints received.  The department lists each violations discovered and requests info from Keystone on how it intends to remediate the issues. 

"...Dunmore, a town bordering Scranton known for its enormous landfill."

This is how the one of the largest media entities in the world (NYT) characterizes Dunmore.

It's brutal. And it probably makes most NEPA folks wince. And get defensive. But sadly, there's more truth to it then we want to acknowledge.

We don't want this to be the descriptor forever. And it's one of the many reasons we keep fighting.

(Image from an article in today's New York Times)

Finally - KSL Notice of Nuisance Odors

Finally.

After years of NEPA residents calling in complaints, the DEP now believes that the odor of rotten garbage that regularly permeates our area actually did originate from the nearby 750-acre site designed specifically to hold rotting garbage.

We've attached the letter DEP sent to KSL last week.

Quality of life matters. Health matters. Our future matters.

Thank you, again, to all of our Friends for sticking with us, and staying on this issue, for so long.

Wolf Should Heed Request on Landfill - Scranton Times Editorial

This is an excellent Editorial in the Scranton Times. It highlights so many of the issues Friends of Lackawanna has been promoting for the past 8 years. Please read it below.

Key takeaways:

--> The never ending burden this dump puts on the citizens of NEPA

--> How these burdens will only get worse as it grows

--> The value of clean waterways

--> DEP's rubber stamping treatment when it comes to this landfill

--> The importance of municipal cooperation

--> The impact of this expansion not just on Dunmore and Throop but of the entire region.

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Wolf should heed request on landfillnion/wolf-should-heed-request-on-landfill/article_b9553c65-4f86-55b6-a2c3-b2cec6e31837.html?fbclid=IwAR1gdVsoAVSdC4GNGeGGQ6GamJQVAgW3BHESvK106JEmHd0SJ43oQxRerMg

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Allowing another 94 million tons of mostly imported garbage to be dumped at the Keystone Sanitary Landfill over the next 38 years obviously ill serves the environmental and health interests of Northeast Pennsylvania.

But that has not stopped the state Department of Environmental Protection from approving the vast landfill expansion. So there is no reason to believe that the DEP will be any more skeptical about the landfill’s ancillary plan to dump 200,000 gallons a day of treated landfill effluent, known as leachate, into Little Roaring Brook in Dunmore.

The stream is a tributary of the Lackawanna River, which is a tributary of the Susquehanna River, which is the largest source of freshwater flowing into Chesapeake Bay. Pennsylvania has committed billions of dollars to reducing pollution in the Susquehanna watershed as to vastly improve the bay’s health. The federal government has ordered costly upgrades to sewer systems throughout the watershed in the same cause.

Yet the DEP might allow the landfill to dump the treated leachate — water that percolates from the landfill — into the stream rather than requiring further treatment at the sewer plant serving Scranton and Dunmore.

On several scores, Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and city council, and Dunmore Mayor Max Conway and borough council, deserve credit for jointly asking Gov. Tom Wolf to ensure the quality of the state’s review.

One issue is the project itself. Another is the DEP’s performance. In a letter to Wolf, they noted the burden that the DEP has ensured for the region by approving the unwarranted landfill expansion and stated flatly that “the department has a record of granting the landfill exactly what it requests.”

The best feature of the joint effort is that it runs counter to the parochial, fragmented local governance that plays a major role in allowing polluters to employ a divide-and-conquer strategy.

By acting jointly, the Scranton and Dunmore officials make a more emphatic case about the landfill’s regional impact, which is far greater than the DEP’s mere technical review suggests.

Wolf should get that message and ensure that the public interest is included in the agency’s latest review. Other local officials should get the message that communities regionwide must act in concert on common quality of life issues.

Concerns about landfill plans to send treated water into watershed - Newswatch 16

Here's a recent story on WNEP-TV on the Landfill's proposal to send up to 200,000 gallons of leachate a day into our rivers.

As Bernie McGurl, executive director of the Lackawanna River Conservation Association, notes, "This watershed, Lackawanna County, has borne an undue burden for municipal waste for the entire northeast Middle Atlantic region. And what do we get for now? Just more burden, more burden? Where's the benefit? I don't see any benefit to it."

You can watch the entire story at:https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lackawanna-county/concerns-about-landfill-plans-to-send-treated-water-into-watershed-keystone-landfill-leachate-wastewater-wateshed-lackawanna-river-roaring-brook/523-03da4bd8-8765-4552-ab2a-67fe6d92953e?fbclid=IwAR1VlICsenXPsEdSQ6ZfIEUHfvGZZBxuWjtTF-AzXoOV7pfJ_rJ6DroxFSA

Scranton, Dunmore officials ask governor review of landfill proposal

Thank you Mayor Cognetti (Mayor of Scranton), Mayor Conway (Mayor Max Conway), Scranton Council and Dunmore Council for voicing your concerns with the Landfill's recent request to dump up to 200,000 gallons of leachate into our waterways.

This is a much needed example of local municipalities working together to represent, and protect, their impacted citizens. And in this case, it will only get worse unless something is done.

“This is just indicative of the broader issue, which is if you allow a landfill to grow this size, the problems and the outputs that it produces grow with it... The bigger these decisions become, the more volume that’s increased, the bigger the risks are, and that’s what we’ve been shouting from the mountaintops for years.” - Pat Clark of Friends of Lacakwanna.

Perhaps as this garbage mountain grows grows taller, Governor Tom Wolf will finally be able to hear us.

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Scranton, Dunmore officials ask governor review of landfill proposal

BY FRANK WILKES LESNEFSKY STAFF WRITER

Leaders of Scranton and Dunmore want Gov. Tom Wolf’s scrutiny as the state Department of Environmental Protection considers a request from the Keystone Sanitary Landfill to discharge treated leachate into a Lackawanna River tributary.

In a letter dated Tuesday and signed by Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti, Dunmore Mayor Max Conway and every member of both Scranton city and Dunmore borough councils, officials urge Wolf to carefully review an application by the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill in Dunmore and Throop. The letter also asks for clarity on aspects of the proposal and notes previous leachate issues at the landfill.

The landfill submitted a major permit modification application Feb. 18 seeking approval to treat leachate to a higher degree on site and discharge up to 200,000 gallons per day into Little Roaring Brook just off of East Drinker Street — enough to fill two Olympic-sized pools in just under a week. The landfill currently pretreats its leachate and pipes it to Pennsylvania American Water’s Scranton wastewater treatment plant.

The landfill initially sought to discharge treated leachate into Eddy Creek and Little Roaring Brook in December 2019 but removed Eddy Creek. Leachate is liquid that percolates through garbage piles.

The DEP is reviewing the landfill’s application, and last month the department sought input from Dunmore and Throop boroughs.

The discussions come 15 months after the DEP approved the landfill’s Phase III expansion, which gave it the capacity to add 188 billion pounds of additional garbage through 2060, tripling its total volume of waste.

“This is the latest example of the continuous burden this landfill puts on both of our municipalities and our area,” according to the joint letter. “These burdens will only grow, in both severity and frequency, due to the 2021 approval of the landfill’s Phase III expansion by the Department of Environmental Protection.”

The letter also takes aim at the DEP, asserting, “The department has a record of granting the landfill exactly what it requests.”

“With the department acting as both the decision maker for each request and the down-stream enforcer of compliance, we are fearful that this could lead to a circular process that harms our health, our environment and our economy,” the Scranton and Dunmore officials wrote.

The DEP declined to comment on the letter, spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said in an email.

“The department has not been provided a copy of the letter directly from the authors to review, and (a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit application from Keystone Landfill is still under review by the department,” she wrote.

The landfill would use the best available technology for the process, landfill consultant Al Magnotta said, adding it is the same technology used to make drinking water from seawater.

“The entire application is on file, and I doubt seriously if anybody in this particular group has had the opportunity or has looked at them,” Magnotta said. “I think a lot of their concerns might be alleviated.”

Magnotta anticipates addressing concerns during a public meeting in the future on the proposal. He said the stream discharge is designed around “extremely, extremely stiff” limits.

In Dunmore, Conway said he maintains a good relationship with Cognetti, and the two have discussed how to collaborate.

“With the landfill in particular, Dunmore doesn’t seem to have any luck going at it alone, so if we have Scranton partners — and our neighbors are strong partners — it makes total sense to work with them if they share our beliefs,” Conway said. “It’s not like the air stops at the Dunmore-Scranton line or the water doesn’t run from Little Roaring Brook into Roaring Brook and then into the Lackawanna (River).”

By penning the joint letter, officials wanted to request that the governor has his administration take a careful look at the application and analyze it, Cognetti said. Dunmore and Scranton have a responsibility to their residents, families and children to continue moving forward with environmental protection and not take any steps back, she said.

“We are asking the governor and his administration to really take a hard look at this and make sure that the decision that comes out is well researched, well documented and something that is safe for our communities,” Cognetti said.

Scranton Council President Kyle Donahue said the letter was to express their concerns on a local, joint level.

“It’s not just about municipal borders. It’s about this region overall,” Donahue said. “We’re protecting our environment.”

Pat Clark, a leader of Friends of Lackawanna, lauded the collaboration and support from elected officials. Friends of Lackawanna is a grassroots group formed in 2014 in opposition to the landfill and its expansion.

“This is just indicative of the broader issue, which is if you allow a landfill to grow this size, the problems and the outputs that it produces grow with it,” Clark said. “The bigger these decisions become, the more volume that’s increased, the bigger the risks are, and that’s what we’ve been shouting from the mountaintops for years.”

Connecticut to send garbage to us... I mean KSL

Connecticut is shutting down its trash-to-energy plant. Anyone care to guess where that trash is going to end up? Yes, right in our backyard. Of course.

This is exactly the chain of events that will keep happening if Pennsylvania's trash-first / communities-second policy is in place.

How it started...

2015: FOL makes the arguments that as long as the state keeps expanding landfills, there is no impetus for anyone to change. And as long as there is no impetus to change, everyone, including other states, do not need to consider alternatives and will keep shipping trash here.

How it's going...

2022: Connecticut shuts down their in-state trash process.

Connecticut seeks proposals to send their waste out of state.

Connecticut chooses the Keystone Sanitary Landfill to send the trash to.

This is not going to end. And NEPA, by virtue of the state's unfettered landfill expansions, will cement our future as the dumping ground for everyone. It's already happening, right in front of our eyes.

Sources:

FOL OpEd from 2015:

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_4cb1932b...

Article on Connecticut shutting down its existing trash process

https://ctmirror.org/.../with-trash-plant-closing-ct.../

Connecticut's Authority looking to out of state landfills

https://www.ctmira.org/.../01/2022-01-19-Board-Package-1.pdf

Send Dump's Water to Sewer Plant, Editorial

This is The Scranton Times-Tribune editorial about KSL's request to send up to *200,000 gallons of leachate per day* directly into our waterways.

The editorial draws a natural, logical conclusion given how DEP has interacted with the Landfill over the past few decades: "... the DEP (should) require Keystone continue to send its leachate through the sewer system operated by a separate entity, which also would ensure a set of eyes on the process other than those of state regulators who too often have served the landfill’s interests rather than the public’s."

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Send dump's water to sewer plant

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD Aug 5, 2022

The state agency that can’t detect odors wafting from the massive Keystone Sanitary Landfill, and which has signed off on its gargantuan expansion, has set a low bar for protecting the public’s interest in a clean environment — even though that is a constitutional right in Pennsylvania.

Now, the landfill wants the Department of Environmental Protection to allow it to dump up to 200,000 gallons of landfill wastewater, every day, into Little Roaring Brook — therefore, downstream into Roaring Brook, the Lackawanna River, the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay.

The effluent, known as leachate, would be treated at the landfill before discharge, using a state-of-the-art process called reverse osmosis.

But the landfill’s plan is rooted in its own economic interest rather than environmental quality. Leachate that the landfill produces now is pretreated at the landfill and then discharged into the Pennsylvania American Water sewer system to be treated a second time before its discharge into the Lackawanna River — treatment for which the landfill must pay.

In a decision that egregiously contradicts the public interest, the DEP in 2021 approved Keystone’s expansion. That will allow another 94 million tons of mostly out-of-state garbage to be dumped at Keystone through 2060.

Even that won’t be the end of Keystone’s massive environmental impact. It is the gift to Northeast Pennsylvania that keeps on giving. Those millions of tons of deteriorating garbage will continue to produce gas, which the landfill collects for use as fuel to produce electricity. And the landfill will generate billions of gallons of wastewater far into the future. Allowing Keystone to dump that water into Little Roaring Brook to avoid sewer fees will save the landfill millions of dollars over time.

The DEP has asked landfill host communities Dunmore and Throop for recommendations. Both borough councils should not just recommend, but demand, that the DEP require Keystone continue to send its leachate through the sewer system operated by a separate entity, which also would ensure a set of eyes on the process other than those of state regulators who too often have served the landfill’s interests rather than the public’s.

Letter to Editor: Gary Duncan (Dunmore)

A recent letter to the editor in the The Scranton Times-Tribune by Gary Duncan reinforces the questions that logically arise around the landfill's request to send up to 200,000 gallons of leachate a day into our waters: What's the technology? will the public be informed? Will the public have a chance to ask questions? Why so much? What are the potential downstream impacts?

Thanks for voicing these questions, Gary.

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Editor: Regarding the Aug. 5 Times-Tribune editorial on Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s request to dump up to 200,000 gallons daily of wastewater into the Little Roaring Brook (“Send dump’s water to sewer plant”), the proposal may be the most preposterous request ever made by a corporate entity.

As so aptly pointed out in the editorial, Roaring Brook flows into the Lackawanna River before entering the Susquehanna River. That flows into Chesapeake Bay and ultimately, the Atlantic Ocean. The potential amount of leachate that would be dumped equates to an almost unfathomable 73 million gallons of potential contaminants annually.

Part of the Lackawanna River has been designated by the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission as a Class A wild trout stream. In 2018 it was listed in Trout Unlimited’s 100 best trout streams and in 2020, it was named Pennsylvania River of the Year.

I request all our local elected officials, members of Dunmore Borough Council and the mayor, along with our three county commissioners — one of whom is from Dunmore — along with state Sen. Marty Flynn, a resident of Dunmore; 112th District state Rep. Kyle Mullins, U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, to contact the state Department of Environmental Protection.

They should demand that until the public has a clear understanding of “reverse osmosis” and a public hearing is held, that no approval of a leachate dump of 200,000 gallons per day from the landfill should be considered.

If our elected officials cannot do that for their constituents, how can they possibly ask us to vote for them in November?

GARY DUNCAN

DUNMORE

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_c4f203e3...

Throop, Dunmore officials asked for input on landfill's creek discharge proposal

KSL wants permission to discharge up to 200,000 gallons of treated leachate (garbage juice) PER DAY into Little Roaring Brook, a Lackawanna River tributary.

What do you think about this?

From our viewpoint: this Landfill has had non-stop leachate management issues for years. From everything we can tell, they can't treat, or contain, the leachate on site. So now the DEP is considering allowing them to simply send it directly into our waterways? This is nuts.

For years, we've said "enough is enough" when it comes to this landfill. From the landfill's perspective, the past 8 years have taught us that "enough is never enough". They will always want more. And then some.

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https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_4232baa6...

Throop, Dunmore officials asked for input on landfill's creek discharge proposal

BY FRANK WILKES LESNEFSKY STAFF WRITER Aug 2, 2022

The state Department of Environmental Protection is seeking input from Dunmore and Throop on an application for the Keystone Sanitary Landfill to discharge up to 200,000 gallons of treated leachate per day into a Lackawanna River tributary.

The DEP is reviewing a major permit modification application to change the leachate management plan at the landfill in Dunmore and Throop owned by Louis and Dominick DeNaples. Under the modified plan, the landfill would treat its leachate to a higher degree on site and empty it directly into Little Roaring Brook just off of East Drinker Street, according to the landfill's Feb. 18 application. The landfill currently pretreats its leachate and pipes it to Pennsylvania American Water's Scranton wastewater treatment plant.

Last year, the DEP approved the landfill's massive Phase III expansion, which gave it the capacity to add 188 billion pounds of additional garbage through 2060, tripling its total volume of waste.

In a letter dated July 28 to Dunmore and Throop boroughs, which DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly provided Tuesday, the DEP informed town officials they have 60 days from the receipt of the letter to provide recommendations on the application. It is part of a lengthy review process, Connolly said, explaining reviews typically include public comment periods.

The landfill initially sought to discharge treated leachate into both Eddy Creek and Little Roaring Brook in December 2019 but later removed Eddy Creek.

Keystone would treat its leachate using a process known as reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis pushes the leachate under high pressure through a membrane that extracts contaminants, landfill consultant Al Magnotta said. The decision to seek the alternative means of discharging is mostly an economic issue, Magnotta said. The landfill has the responsibility to treat its leachate for "many, many years" even after it closes, he said. It comes down to trying to balance the annual cost of paying Pennsylvania American Water over the long term with the capital equipment to discharge leachate to the creek, he said.

The landfill will have the option to go back and forth between the water company and Little Roaring Brook, Magnotta said, pointing to the much stricter standards for discharging into the creek. If approved, Magnotta expects to continue using the water company as well.

They have two reverse-osmosis systems in place with a third system ordered that they plan to have operational this year, he said.

Bernie McGurl, executive director of the Lackawanna River Conservation Association, acknowledged that reverse osmosis produces "pretty clean water," but noted the importance of monitoring the discharge. McGurl would have preferred the treated water going into Eddy Creek to help with habitat restoration, but in its current state, the creek would not be able to receive the water because portions of it were obliterated by coal mining.

The treatment technology is almost adequate to produce drinking water, but because of where it originates, McGurl said he doesn't believe it's a good source to create drinking water.

"It's an industrial process. It's dependent on technology," he said. "If there's any amount of breakdown in the technology and it doesn't meet its effluent standards, that's not a good thing."

The landfill has several failsafe alternatives if they realized there's a problem and needed to divert the discharge, McGurl said.

"They're going to need to keep an eye on it," he said. "If they don't, I'm sure DEP will be knocking on their door, as well as I and lots of fishermen."

To submit public comment to the DEP, email Connolly at coconnolly@pa.gov.

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Keystone landfill expansion leads top stories of 2021

The Landfill's expansion was selected as the region's top news story of 2021 by The Scranton Times-Tribune.

This expansion is more than the story of any single year - it will impact Northeastern Pennsylvania for generations to come.

As you know, we are appealing the DEP's decision and continue to believe, as the article states, this process and decision has been "a total failure by DEP and the state on every level.”

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Keystone landfill expansion leads top stories of 2021

BY DAVID SINGLETON STAFF WRITER

The decision, in the end, came as little surprise.

When the state Department of Environmental Protection announced it had approved the expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill, it seemed like everyone already understood the pros and the cons. Most also anticipated which position DEP would take.

Among non-COVID-19-related stories, the approval of Keystone’s expansion was the choice as Northeast Pennsylvania’s top news story of 2021 in voting by The Sunday Times news staff.

It topped the arrest and conviction of former Old Forge School Director Frank Scavo for his role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.

1. Keystone expansion approved

A process that dragged on for seven years culminated in June when Keystone Sanitary Landfill won approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection to expand.

The effects of that controversial decision will last considerably longer.

In granting the major permit modification that owners Louis and Dominick DeNaples originally sought for Keystone’s Phase III expansion in 2014, DEP gave the landfill a green light to continue accepting waste for four more decades.

The agency concluded the benefits of the expansion, many of them financial, “clearly outweigh the known and potential harms.”

The decision will allow the landfill in Dunmore and Throop, which has already been operating for 42 years, to increase its capacity to accept an additional 94 million tons of refuse through 2060.

The decision dismayed expansion opponents.

A spokesman for Friends of Lackawanna, a civic group that fought against the expansion, branded the approval “a total failure by DEP and the state on every level.”

The organization appealed DEP’s decision to the state Environmental Hearing Board.

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https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_2c80b7ca...

Let Sierra Club intervene in landfill case

The Scranton Times Editorial Board nails it once again!

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_7f10442c...

Let Sierra Club intervene in landfill case

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD Dec 22, 2021

The Keystone Sanitary Landfill pretty much has had its way with state regulators regarding its unfolding effort to construct a massive mountain of trash in the middle of Lackawanna County. It’s crucial for the sake of the state government’s credibility that the Environmental Hearing Board does not repeat the state Department of Environmental Protection’s mistake.

Keystone plans to expand the already-massive landfill by accepting another 94 million tons of mostly out-of-state garbage over the next 40 years. Incredibly, the DEP belied its own name by signing off in June on this abomination, finding that, overall, it would benefit Northeast Pennsylvania.

The antilandfill citizens’ group Friends of Lackawanna appealed the DEP’s wayward decision to the Environmental Hearing Board, an independent administrative body that reviews DEP’s regulatory decisions when they are challenged.

Now the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group with more than 32,000 Pennsylvanians among its 800,000-plus members nationwide, has petitioned the Environmental Hearing Board to join Friends of Lackawanna in the appeal.

The national group’s interest in joining the case reflects the enormity of the landfill project and the environmental issues that were glossed over by the DEP. Its testimony would include whether the DEP’s harm/benefit analysis of the expansion was flawed, the effects of landfill effluent known as leachate on surface water and groundwater, and whether the landfill has met its compliance burden of proving that the expansion comports with regional residents’ right, under the state constitution, to clean air and water.

The landfill company wants to preclude the Sierra Club’s involvement or severely limit the scope of its testimony. The DEP, remarkably, also wants to limit the scope the Sierra Club’s potential testimony.

The DEP has a checkered history regarding its duty to protect the public interest regarding the landfill, at one point failing to detect noxious odors from the landfill that were obvious to anyone with a nose.

Ideally, the Environmental Hearing Board will better recognize the public interest, beginning with allowing the Sierra Club’s involvement in the Friends of Lackawanna appeal.

Sierra Club wants to join local civic group's fight to revoke state approval of 40-year expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill

[Legal appeal update] The Sierra Club is seeking to join our appeal of the Landfill's expansion currently working its way through the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB).

As a local organization run 100% by volunteers, we are thrilled to have them join us and hope the EHB allows them to do so.

"For a grassroots group like ours to have the support of one of the best known environmental advocates in the country reinforces our belief that we’re on the right side of history here,” FOL core member Pat Clark said. “It’s great to have their knowledge, expertise and support on our side.”

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_bd9cda20...

Sierra Club wants to join local civic group's fight to revoke state approval of 40-year expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill

BY JIM LOCKWOOD STAFF WRITER Dec 20, 2021

DUNMORE — The Sierra Club environmental organization wants to join a local civic group’s fight against the state’s approval of a massive 40-year expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill.

The state Department of Environmental Protection in June approved an additional 94 million tons, or 188 billion pounds, of mostly out-of-state garbage over the next four decades at the landfill straddling Dunmore and Throop and owned by brothers Louis and Dominick DeNaples.

The landfill has been in operation for over 42 years.

Days after the DEP decision, the civic group Friends of Lackawanna filed an appeal with the state Environmental Hearing Board to get the expansion approval revoked.

The appeal remains pending in early stages before the hearing board, which is an independent, quasi-judicial agency made up of five full-time, governor-appointed judges with jurisdiction to hold hearings and rule on DEP orders, permits, licenses and decisions.

On Nov. 30, the Sierra Club filed a legal petition with the board for approval to intervene in the case supporting FOL. The nonprofit Sierra Club was incorporated in California and has over 800,000 members nationwide, including 32,255 members in a Pennsylvania chapter, according to the petition.

The Sierra Club would offer evidence, expert testimony and legal arguments on the following: leachate management and impacts on groundwater and surface water; whether the DEP’s harms/benefits analysis of the expansion plan was flawed; and whether the landfill met its burden of proving compliance with the public’s right to pure water and clean air under the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Last week, the landfill, DEP and FOL filed separate replies to the petition.

Friends of Lackawanna supports having the Sierra Club enter the case.

“For a grassroots group like ours to have the support of one of the best known environmental advocates in the country reinforces our belief that we’re on the right side of history here,” FOL core member Pat Clark said. “It’s great to have their knowledge, expertise and support on our side.”

In opposing the petition, the landfill argues the Sierra Club lacks legal standing to intervene for several reasons, including the issues the club would raise are already asserted by FOL; the Sierra Club is not an aggrieved party in the matter; and the club missed a 30-day appeal deadline. But if the Environmental Hearing Board allows the Sierra Club to enter the case, the involvement should be narrowly limited to issues raised in the FOL appeal, says the landfill response.

The DEP did not oppose the petition, but also said that if the board allows the Sierra Club to intervene, the scope should be limited, according to the DEP reply.

The appeal will not be decided soon. It will extend at least throughout most of 2022, based on a judge’s scheduling order issued last month that set various deadlines, including for all motions to be filed by Nov. 15, 2022.

Meanwhile, the landfill is changing its plans for an alternative leachate treatment disposal method to discharge into one waterway instead of two.

The landfill currently pretreats the leachate that percolates through the trash piles and pipes the liquid to the sewer system purchased five years ago by Pennsylvania American Water from the Scranton Sewer Authority. The wastewater of the Scranton-Dunmore sewer system flows to the PAW treatment plant in South Scranton, where it is treated and the resulting effluent discharged into the Lackawanna River.

Two years ago, the landfill embarked on a plan to add an alternative method of leachate treatment by reverse osmosis, which the landfill said was a higher level of treatment that would allow for discharging effluent directly into two nearby waterways, Little Roaring Brook and Eddy Creek, as well as for spraying onto landfill dirt roads to keep dust down.

In changing this plan, the landfill issued public notices in The Times-Tribune on Dec. 8 and Dec. 15 indicating the landfill now will seek DEP approval to use only Little Roaring Brook.

The treated wastewater would be conveyed and discharged into Little Roaring Brook next to the landfill’s connection to the water-company’s sewer system, landfill spokesman Al Magnotta said in an email.

“Valves will be installed at this location, thus KSL will have the option to either discharge to the PAWC (Pennsylvania American Water Company) facilities and/or Little Roaring Brook,” Magnotta said.

Direct discharge to Eddy Creek and by spraying on roads were removed as options because Eddy Creek runs intermittently and both methods would require additional environmental impact evaluations that are not complete, he said.

“We are contemplating submission for these options at a later date,” Magnotta said.

The landfill already uses reverse osmosis to process all landfill wastewater and sends it to the PAW sewer system, Magnotta said. With a second reverse osmosis treatment system now online, “discharge volume has been increased from 100,000 gallons per day to 200,000 gallons per day,” he said, saying the effluent is treated to a higher standard than household wastewater.

The doubling in daily volume stems from computer-generated maximum leachate flow associated with the expansion, he said.

For information or to comment on the Little Roaring Brook discharge plan, contact the DEP by mail at PADEP Northeast Regional Office, 2 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701-1915, or by phone at 570-826-2511.

From Biden's hometown, a reminder of the perils of toxic fracking waste

"When Joe Biden came back to Scranton last month, there was a place he didn’t visit: the landfill on the edge of town that’s full of toxic fracking waste....The president promised to fight for communities like Scranton, but 10 months into his presidency, he’s yet to use his executive authority to crack down on fracking or regulate its toxic waste."

Thank you for this unnerving reminder of the perils of toxic fracking waste and how it is impacting our community, Janet Brier!

https://www.inquirer.com/.../biden-fracking-toxic-waste...

Picture of KSL's Pollution over the years, and DEP's inaction

Here are some images of KSL over the past few years. Each time one of these issues is brought up, KSL says they will fix and DEP credits them for saying they will. They look at each individual incident independently. But what about the big picture? What about the cumulative impact of these events?

They keep missing the forest for the trees.

And these are only things easy to capture on film: openly burning landfill gas; garbage all over; bird infestation; and trucks lined up on the highway shoulders at 1am.

The burning? "It was only for a minute..."

The trash all over? "It was windy that day..."

The birds? "We have lots of natural seagulls in this part of PA..."

The trucks? "We'll build bigger parking lots..."

But look closely. This is what is happening in front of our very eyes. It is destruction in plain sight. Zoom out a bit and you can see it, clear as you can see the dump from throughout the valley.

These events are not going to go away. They will continue and increase in frequency and magnitude as long as the landfill can grow.

Don't miss the forest for the trees.

Don't let this define our future.

Environmental justice skips over Keystone, Editorial

We fully agree with the Scranton Times Editorial Board that if the Wolf administration truly is serious about environmental justice, it will review and reverse its unwarranted permit approval for the Keystone Landfill expansion, a project that perfectly describes what the new Environmental Justice Office has been created to prevent.

Dunmore is in an Environmental Justice Area. FOL has participated on may EJ calls with the DEP over the past several years, providing our input on the ineffectiveness of their current efforts and how they could be improved.

Why did Governor Wolf wait until after the DEP approved a 50 year landfill expansion in an Environmental Justice Area to establish a new Office of Environmental Justice? Why did he also wait until after the expansion was approved to decide to test for Radium in leachate, something FOL pointed out with others for years? We hope this isn't another NEPA case of too little, too late.

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/tncms/auth/return/...

Environmental justice skips over Keystone

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

It’s not by accident that heavily polluting enterprises tend to be located near poor communities that don’t have the resources to fight against them. And Pennsylvania has a long pattern of allowing those enterprises to locate or expand atop previously polluted sites, such as strip mines.

So Gov. Tom Wolf is correct in trying to mitigate the effects of that unfairly distributed pollution burden, with a recent executive order establishing a permanent Office of Environmental Justice.

“My administration is committed to working ... to strengthen our efforts to ensure environmental justice for all Pennsylvanians,” Wolf said while signing the order.

“Many Pennsylvania communities have been disproportionately harmed by pollution, and today’s executive order ... is a first step in making sure that we have some of the tools to mitigate and prevent it from happening in the future,” said Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell.

According to the DEP, “environmental justice embodies the principles that communities and populations should not be disproportionally exposed to adverse environmental impacts.”

The new office clearly will focus on mitigating the existing effects of concentrated industrial pollution within low-income communities, and preventing those concentrations in the future.

But DEP never has needed a dedicated office of environmental justice to achieve those goals. While announcing the grand principles behind the office, for example, McDonnell’s agency has signed off on the 40-year expansion of the sprawling, stinking Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore and Throop — a project that directly contradicts those stated principles and goals and imposes substantial pollution harms on a wide swath of Lackawanna County.

Allowing the landfill to accept another 100 million tons or so of mostly out-of-state garbage clearly constitutes a community being “disproportionately harmed by pollution,” the very circumstance that McDonnell condemned in his statement about the new office.

If the Wolf administration truly is serious about environmental justice, it will review and reverse its unwarranted permit approval for the Keystone Landfill expansion, a project that perfectly describes what the new Environmental Justice Office has been created to prevent.

https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/.../article_ea6679f8...