SCRANTON — Local environmental concerns took center stage Monday evening as the state Department of Environmental Protection sought public input on its new environmental justice policy.
With public meetings scheduled across the state, the DEP hosted a public comment session at the University of Scranton’s Loyola Science Center, giving Northeast Pennsylvania residents the opportunity to weigh in on the department’s “interim final” environmental justice policy, which provides a framework to guide the department’s administrative discretion, according to the policy. The document will guide DEP policy, but it is not a statute or regulation — meaning it is not law.
The DEP adopted the interim final policy Sept. 16 and is accepting public comments through Nov. 30.
The purpose of the policy is to “facilitate environmental justice in communities across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and to ensure equity and environmental justice in the administration of DEP’s constitution, statutory and regulatory duties,” according to the policy. The DEP defines environmental justice as the “just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, wealth, race, color, national origin, area of residence, tribal affiliation, or disability, in agency decision-making and other activities that affect human health and the environment.”
Low-income communities and communities of color bear a disproportionate share of detrimental environmental impacts with accompanying adverse health impacts, according to the DEP.
The interim final policy includes criteria to receive an environmental justice area designation, tactics for proactive community outreach, ways to enhance public participation, and scrutiny during inspections, compliance and enforcement.
An environmental justice area is a geographic area characterized by increased pollution burden and sensitive or vulnerable populations based on environmental and demographic data, according to the DEP. Most of Lackawanna County falls beneath the threshold for an environmental justice designation, with only sections of Scranton, Taylor and Moosic meeting the criteria.
The new policy includes several sections enhancing the previous environmental justice public participation policy, which has been in effect since 2004, said Juan Serrat, an eastern regional coordinator for the DEP Office of Environmental Justice. It also includes substantial changes obtained through public engagement efforts, as well as comments from a previous draft in 2018, Serrat said.
The previous policy only looked at two demographic factors — race and income — to determine environmental justice areas, whereas the new policy looks at 30 different factors, said Justin Dula, director of the DEP Office of Environmental Justice. Those factors range from age, race and poverty to exposure to toxic air and water emissions, traffic density, fracking and municipal waste sites.
About 30 residents attended Monday’s meeting, including leadership of Friends of Lackawanna — a group formed in opposition to the Keystone Sanitary Landfill and its expansion — and Citizens for a Healthy Jessup, which formed to combat Invenergy’s Lackawanna Energy Center natural gas-fired power plant.
Dunmore Borough Council Vice President Janet Brier was the first of about a dozen speakers to offer testimony, directing her remarks toward the new policy’s sections on public participation and inspections, compliance and enforcement. She criticized the current process to report odors at the landfill.
“There’s no odor detection in our area, so it’s up to citizens to call in,” Brier said. “I get lots of calls about the smells because the smells are almost nonstop, and they’re horrendous.”
Some residents are afraid to report odors themselves, and when the DEP dispatches an inspector to investigate, the odor has already moved on by the time the inspector arrives, she said.
Jeff Smith, the president of Citizens for a Healthy Jessup, along with Pat Clark, a leader of Friends of Lackawanna, and Michele Dempsey, a founding member, pointed to a lack of “teeth” in the policy, as it is not regulatory.
“I’m not sure if I see the teeth that citizens need for the protections,” Smith said.
The three also questioned the policy on removing environmental justice designations for municipalities like Dunmore.
While Dunmore was previously an environmental justice area, Dula said it has not met the criteria since census data in 2015.
Smith suggested expanding buffer zones for environmental justice areas.
“If Dunmore is not an EJ area, they should be well within a buffer area so we can slow the growth and control the environment and help the other citizens,” he said.
Clark asked for additional explanation on calculations for environmental justice designations, such as whether there would be special consideration for proximity to a landfill. The Friends of Lackawanna leader also questioned the role of cumulative impacts and historical burdens. He and Dempsey asked DEP officials whether the department has considered grandfathering in areas that previously had an environmental justice designation because of their historical burden.
“We get the worst of all worlds if this carries through like this,” Clark said. “We were environmental justice. We no longer get protections. The new rules come out, and we don’t get the enforcement benefits.”
To view the new environmental justice policy, visit dep.pa.gov.
To submit a public comment online through Nov. 30, use the DEP’s eComment tool on its website, or email comments to ecomment@pa.gov.