From the Scranton Times Tribune
A Dunmore councilwoman asked Gov. Josh Shapiro to use his executive power Tuesday to mandate an enhanced odor monitoring system at the Keystone Sanitary Landfill that shifts the burden of reporting odors off of residents.
“It should not be the responsibility of the citizens of Northeast Pennsylvania to monitor odors coming from the landfill and then report them,” council Vice President Janet Brier wrote in a letter to Shapiro. “(Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection) has the authority and the mandate to protect us. DEP should be constantly monitoring the malodorous landfill odors, not the citizens who are subjected to them.”
Brier’s letter Tuesday, copied to DEP officials as well as multiple Pennsylvania-based media organizations, follows 260-plus odor complaints since Oct. 1 regarding the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill. The councilwoman called for electronic monitoring as waves of odor complaints strain DEP resources.
The DEP cited the landfill in Dunmore and Throop for nine violations pertaining to odors in January after 233 odor complaints between Sept. 1, 2022, and Jan. 20. In October, it admonished the landfill for odors. On Nov. 21, the department suspended the landfill’s ability to remove the cover from garbage piles that naturally settled below their original height and deposit additional garbage to “reclaim air space.” The suspension cited hundreds of odor complaints, department staff routinely detecting offsite landfill gas odors and a Nov. 16 inspection.
Keystone responded Thursday, explaining it is working to mitigate odors while also contending the public misattributes odors to it.
The DEP allows residents to report odors online or by phone, with one phone number for business hours and one after-hours number.
Brier called the DEP’s process of responding to odor complaints “wholly inadequate” with delayed or non-existent responses.
Brier said she directs constituents to the phone line, but they are often either afraid to leave their names, addresses and phone numbers, or are discouraged from calling after hours when the answering service asks if they are calling about an emergency.
“As a result, although DEP receives hundreds of calls complaining of odors, it is a very, very small amount of calls compared to the actual number of people living in this valley who are adversely affected,” she wrote.
When the DEP receives an odor complaint, it is logged by a complaint specialist, and staff review it to determine if it requires a physical response, spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said in a phone interview late Tuesday.
If it warrants a response, a staff member is dispatched to the complainant’s address to document any odors present and then prepare a report, Connolly said.
The DEP will allow Shapiro’s office to comment on the complaints in Brier’s letter, but “DEP understands that at times the odor complaint registration and investigation process can result in delayed responses, and that’s frustrating to the public,” Connolly said.
“We understand that,” Connolly said. “To counter this, when circumstances warrant it, DEP will initiate odor patrols.”
Since Nov. 13, DEP staff have been conducting daily odor patrols around Keystone, in addition to reviewing methane monitoring reports and conducting inspections twice a month to ensure they are in compliance with their odor mitigation systems, which is standard for all landfills, not just Keystone, Connolly said. The methane smell is often associated with landfills.
“DEP staff have been conducting these patrols in the early morning, in the evening hours, during the week and on weekends to monitor the area around the landfill for odors,” she said. “We conduct them after hours so we can respond to odor complaints near the landfill, which is typically when we get the calls.”
The odor patrols result in more timely responses when people call in complaints, Connolly said.
Manpower is a challenge, though, she said.
“We’ve been making necessary accommodations to address the uptick in complaints, and we’ll continue to address this as needed,” she said. “We’re working with the manpower and the staff that we have.”
In a phone interview Tuesday, Brier said since the department doesn’t have the manpower, she would like to see 24-hour electronic monitoring to record odors and build a database.
“We need something permanent and electronic,” she said. “We don’t need a human being up there. We need some type of monitoring that will monitor and record the smells coming from that place.”
Landfill consultant Al Magnotta pointed to the landfill’s existing monitoring, including at least half a dozen monitoring stations around its perimeter. The landfill conducts daily surface scans of its landfill gas collection system and its work areas, with the results being automatically recorded and used to establish mitigation priorities, he said in a texted statement.
Keystone also records meteorological data daily and uses it to develop air emissions mitigation work assignments; on a quarterly basis, Keystone has an independent air quality consultant perform seven days of 24-hour air emissions sampling, which is analyzed in an annual report to the DEP, he said.
To report an odor by phone, call 570-830-3057 during business hours or 570-826-2511 after hours. To file a complaint online, visit greenport.pa.gov/obPublic/EnvironmentalComplaintForm.