From the Scranton Times Tribune
The Keystone Sanitary Landfill is working to mitigate odors following a wave of recent complaints, though it contends the public misattributes odors to it.
Late last month, the state Department of Environmental Protection suspended the Louis and Dominick DeNaples-owned landfill’s settlement accommodation plan operations, or SAP, which had allowed Keystone to remove the cover on top of waste piles that had naturally settled below their original height and then deposit additional waste to “reclaim air space.”
The Nov. 21 suspension letter cited hundreds of recent odor complaints from residents in communities surrounding the landfill, department staff routinely detecting offsite landfill gas odors and a Nov. 16 inspection where inspectors smelled more pungent, leachate-like odors at a SAP area.
The DEP said it received more than 200 odor complaints from Oct. 1 through Nov. 22. Since then, the department has received about 60 more complaints, spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said in an email.
The majority of the complaints were related to the landfill’s operations, according to the suspension letter. While responding to residents’ odor complaints, DEP staff often detected landfill-related odors outside of Keystone’s property on Marshwood Road, the Casey Highway, Interstate 81 and other areas around the landfill.
The DEP gave the landfill 10 days to submit a plan to mitigate and control the odors, which it pinpointed to Keystone’s settlement accommodation plan areas. Those areas encompass less than 10 acres of the 714-acre landfill in Dunmore and Throop.
The landfill responded Thursday, documenting its mitigation measures while also saying it disagrees with the DEP’s findings.
The landfill immediately suspended its SAP operations following an Oct. 25 phone call with the DEP, landfill business Manager Dan O’Brien wrote in the response.
Keystone acknowledged that “certain required tasks and activities” have the potential to generate odors, including placing final covers on garbage, repairing/replacing vacuum lines, raising stone columns and vertical well drilling.
To eliminate odors from the SAP area, Keystone outlined six mitigation measures, including installing five horizontal collection wells, drilling new gas extraction wells, placing 20,000-plus tons of soil cover material and plans to carry out final closure activities at a portion of the SAP area, which the landfill expects to complete in the spring.
In the meantime, the landfill will aggressively monitor the area, among other work, and it will continue its efforts to reduce emissions from the SAP area, O’Brien wrote.
The suspension letter was the third time this year the DEP has addressed landfill odor reports amid Keystone’s Phase III expansion. The DEP approved the expansion June 3, 2021, allowing the landfill to triple its capacity over the next four decades by adding just over 94 million tons of trash, or about 188 billion pounds.
The landfill is confident it remains compliant with its DEP-approved nuisance minimization and control plan, O’Brien wrote.
“The vast majority of the ‘hundreds of odor complaints from residents’ originated from residential neighborhoods surrounding the landfill but DEP inspectors have not confirmed the presence of landfill-related odors during the most recent onslaught of complaints,” O’Brien wrote.
O’Brien contended the landfill has identified “numerous business operations, infrastructure performance issues, marshes and poorly maintained drainage ponds in the immediate area that produce odors, some on a regular basis.”
“The public in general is not qualified to either identify a specific odor or make a determination as to the origin of the odor and yet the conclusion is always the same — ‘it has to be the landfill,” O’Brien wrote.
The DEP is aware of other potential odor sources in the area, and its staff are well trained to recognize these different types of odors, Connolly said.
“While at times the public may misidentify a source of odors, DEP staff are capable of differentiating these odors when they respond to the odor complaints,” she said.
The department has been conducting after-hours odor patrols in the area of the landfill, including weekends, in response to the complaints, Connolly said. DEP staff have detected landfill-related odors in the communities of Dunmore and Throop, she said.
The DEP is evaluating the landfill’s response, she said.
Landfill consultant Al Magnotta said in a text Monday he would prefer to let the landfill’s operational staff detail its “comprehensive mitigation program and the vast amount of technical/scientific data we have accumulated” to show the “vast majority” of alleged odor incidents did not originate at Keystone. Instead, Magnotta contends they are an attempt by landfill opposition group Friends of Lackawanna to “make a record” as it appeals the landfill’s Phase III expansion to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board.
Reached by phone Monday night, Pat Clark, a leader of Friends of Lackawanna, said it couldn’t be further from the truth to insinuate residents don’t know what the smell is. He called Magnotta’s assertion about the source of the odor complaints insulting.
“Al Magnotta thinks we’ve got a bat signal that we just put out and say, ‘Have people call the DEP’ like people have nothing better else to do with their time,” Clark said. “That’s not the case — people were worried about their health. They’re worried about their quality of life. They’re worried about this town and this area.”
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.