Another spot on Editorial by the Times-Tribune.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Excerpt:
The proposed massive expansion of the Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore exposes some of the worst aspects of local governance, beginning with politicians willing to swap the future for a buck today.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/legacy-on-line-in-dunmore-1.1788609
Friends, there is so much well-reported coverage of the KSL expansion in the Times-Tribune today.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Excerpt:
Patrick Clark, another core Friends of Lackawanna member, said Keystone only seeks a large expansion to take out-of-state and gas industry waste, he said.
“Neither of those results are in the best interests of anyone that lives in this area,” he said. “Unless, of course, you own a landfill.”
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/alliance-could-accept-keystone-s-share-of-local-garbage-1.1788973
Today’s article says approving a new contract would not be seen as consent for the landfill expansion by the DEP. This would be the case as long as that contract did NOT include the Phase 3 expansion, however, the current proposed agreement does include Phase 3.
The Host Municipality Agreement is weighed heavily in the Harms/Benefit analysis. If the Borough agrees to accept money for Phase 3 then they are saying that Phase 3 is acceptable. The DEP will certainly see that as consent. We want to be clear that Friends of Lackawanna is opposing the inclusion of Phase 3 in the agreement since this is the important distinction.
Also, the article does not mention how this proposed deal is worth less and less with each passing year – to the point that in terms of today’s dollars, the last year of the proposed deal is worth less than what the Borough receives today.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/dep-dunmore-landfill-agreement-not-consent-for-expanding-1.1788476
Thank you to all who came out to stand and be heard! It made a difference once again!
Excerpt:
“In the application Keystone is going to present to DEP, Exhibit A is going to be this agreement,” attorney Mark Perry told borough council, in part referring to no expiration date for the deal. “If you don’t want (the expansion), then the choice is clear. Don’t vote for this.”
The contract would increase the fee to $1.20 per ton this year, then annually add 10 cents per ton until the total increases to $1.50 in December 2017.
The idea is to then add a penny per ton per year for the remaining life of the landfill, but Mr. Clark pointed to a potential interpretation of the wording that the fee could drop to 42 cents per ton in 2018 with $1.50 not clearly defined as the base amount at that point.
http://m.thetimes-tribune.com/news/dunmore-council-tables-decision-on-landfill-proposal-1.1788022
Excerpts:
Times-Tribune
KYLE WIND, STAFF WRITER
Published: October 28,2014
As the Keystone Sanitary Landfill seeks to expand its facility, Lackawanna County commissioners might try to get a piece of the pie from the operation.
Currently, the county doesn’t get a direct fee per ton of waste as host municipalities Dunmore and Throop do. However, host fees for counties are not uncommon in the state Department of Environmental Protection’s northeast region, said agency spokeswoman Colleen Connolly. Over the last eight to 10 years, area counties that have fees typically get $2 to $4 per ton, she said.
Schuylkill County gets $3 per ton from Commonwealth Environmental Systems — which, like Keystone, is owned by Louis and Dominick DeNaples. The fee was already in place when the brothers took over the landfill, said landfill consultant Albert Magnotta.
Schuylkill County also is allowed to dispose of waste at its landfill for free, while Lackawanna County paid haulers at least $100,000 for waste disposal last year.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/county-commissioners-weigh-asking-landfill-for-host-fee-1.1785419
A fantastic letter to the editor in the Times Tribune today by Katherine Mackrell Oven!
Excerpts:
Editor: In an Oct. 19 op-ed article, Albert Magnotta tries to make a case for the benefits of the proposed Keystone Sanitary Landfill expansion.
Mr. Magnotta quantifies the estimated financial benefits to the state and regional economy as $3 billion over 50 years. However, he neglects to quantify the potential damage to property values due to the fact that no one will look to purchase homes in Dunmore, given that the landfill’s new height will be higher than five Bank Towers buildings.
Has anyone taken into consideration the health care costs that may be associated with a plethora of illness potentially linked to living in close proximity to a landfill?
There are vast expanses of undeveloped, unpopulated areas throughout Pennsylvania far more suitable for this mountain of garbage.
So when Mr. Magnotta says the harms are minimal, I disagree.
People of our area deserve the opportunity to live and raise our families in a safe and healthy environment.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-editor-11-03-2014-1.1781792
If you read the article in today’s Times Tribune and want to help protect our community, please contribute or donate (it can be anonymous) one of the following ways:
For online donations that can be anonymous:
https://www.crowdrise.com/friendsoflackawanna/fundraiser/friendsoflackawanna1
Also, checks can be made payable to Friends of Lackawanna and sent to the following:
Friends of Lackawanna
201 South Blakely St., PMB #305
Dunmore, PA 18512
You can also send checks directly to our environmental attorney at the following (made payable to Curtin & Heefner LLP with Friends of Lackawanna in the memo):
Curtin & Heefner LLP
c/o Jordan Yeager, Esq.
2005 South Easton Rd., Suite 100
Doylestown, PA 18901
Today’s article in the Times Tribune highlights Friends of Lackawanna. We requested no photos for the article since Friends of Lackawanna is about a large group of concerned citizens opposing the landfill expansion. They took the photos in the paper from their archives and the wrong person is pictured as Katherine Mackrell Oven, who is quoted in the article.
Excerpt:
Concerned about the environment and public health, a growing number of area residents are organizing to fight Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s proposed expansion in Dunmore and Throop.
The group formed an organization called Friends of Lackawanna. It has around a dozen core members, nearly 850 Facebook followers and has packed Dunmore Community Center with concerned citizens at recent borough council meetings.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/keystone-landfill-expansion-facing-organized-opposition-1.1781974
Many thanks to Chris Kelly from the Times-Tribune for standing up, being counted and giving Friends of Lackawanna a voice in his poignant Editorial today. He describes Friends of Lackawanna as “a new generation of leaders with fresh ideas and the talent and tenacity to translate them into action.”
Excerpt:
Times-Tribune
CHRIS KELLY, KELLY’S WORLD
Published: November 2, 2014
“Stand and be counted or sit it out and be dumped on forever.”
We will continue to stand and be counted.
Another fantastic step in the right direction to protect the health, safety, home values and image of our area. Friends, we are making a difference one important step at a time.
Excerpt:
Times-Tribune
KYLE WIND, STAFF WRITER
Published: October 28,2014
More than nine months after Borough Council expressed support for Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s proposed expansion, Dunmore’s elected representatives are withdrawing the sentiment.
“Please let this letter serve as formal notice that Dunmore borough would like to reserve the right to contest the Phase 3 application for Keystone Sanitary Landfill,” reads a letter council unanimously approved on Monday.
The letter to the state Department of Environmental Protection also asks the agency to strike from the record a previous communication stating the group did not intend to object to the application.
http://m.thetimes-tribune.com/news/dunmore-asks-to-withdraw-support-of-keystone-project-1.1778162
Times-Tribune
KYLE WIND, STAFF WRITER
Published: October 25, 2014
Excerpts:
Plans to expand Keystone Sanitary Landfill may violate the borough’s zoning law that restricts the height of structures, opponents of the expansion say.
Answering the complicated legal question of how the zoning law would relate to the landfill starts with a simple query: Is the landfill a structure?
The answer is important because Dunmore’s 2000 zoning ordinance limits the height of buildings and structures in M-1 zones — in which the Keystone resides on the Dunmore side of the landfill — to 50 feet.
Dunmore’s zoning handbook defines a structure as: “Anything constructed or erected, the use of which requires location on the ground or attachment to something having a fixed location on the ground.” It goes on to list examples like buildings, mobile homes, swimming pools, carports, walls, fences and billboards.
“I think you would find a legitimate debate as to whether it is a structure under the zoning laws,” landfill consultant Albert Magnotta said.
Dunmore resident Pat Clark, a licensed attorney who is concerned about the expansion, argued Keystone is indeed a structure and cited a Commonwealth Court ruling from January that found a similar height restriction in Liberty Twp. applied to a proposed 99.27-acre landfill site in Mercer County.
The decision “may be cited for its persuasive value but not as a binding precedent,” according to the written opinion.
From Mr. Clark’s perspective, Keystone is not naturally-occurring but is manmade, and therefore is a structure.
Excellent rebuttal to the Harms/Benefit Analysis by Pat Clark in the Times-Tribune today.
Excerpt:
Pat Clark, a Dunmore resident and co- founder of online recruiting software company Hyrell, has been following the expansion closely, going through the harms-benefits analysis and making notes.
“I think the whole process is largely a sham,” he said.
The core of the problem is that the landfill lists benefits with a dollar amount, while harms are not quantified, he said.
“Not one harm has a dollar amount on it other than the cost to repave the road that the dump trucks are going to use to get into the landfill,” he said, though he acknowledged it would be difficult to place a dollar value on something like an unobstructed view of the mountains.
Plus, some of those benefits — payroll, taxes and expenses — are also part of the cost of doing business, he said, and shouldn’t be considered.
“Those are mandatory things you have to do as a business to make more money,” he said.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/landfill-analysis-pits-money-vs-intangibles-1.1774124
An editorial by the landfill’s consultant is in the paper today. Once again, we are being told that we can’t possibly live without the landfill and we would be lost without their monetary “benefits”, which the consultant quantifies over 50 years. There are several glaring omissions to this article and to the Harms/Benefit analysis, including the the fact that the landfill is leaking and already contaminating our groundwater. Another glaring omission includes quantifying the harms over the next 50 years. What is that number? And what are the unquantifiable harms (i.e. people not moving to Dunmore/Throop/our area and the impact on taxes and businesses)? Members of Friends of Lackawanna have read through the Harms/Benefit analysis from the Phase 3 permit application in depth and will be sharing our feedback very soon. In the mean time, please message if you would like a copy of the Harms/Benefit analysis from the permit application.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/opinion/keystone-benefits-invaluable-harms-minimal-1.1773346
The landfill consultant is now saying that the landfill will run out of space in about 5 years and transporting trash out of the area will be expensive for taxpayers. However, the short-term financial challenges mentioned by the consultant would be absolutely dwarfed by the long term negative financial, health and environmental impacts on our community if the expansion is allowed–the Sunday Times reported our groundwater is already compromised. Our property values, our environment and the health of our community depend on stopping the expansion.
As Katherine Oven says in the article, “The financial and logistical problems of waste disposal is not a valid reason to continue sending trash to Dunmore and Throop for nearly another half-century.” And Tim Burke “feared the figure was “a scare tactic” to move the application along.”
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/keystone-consultant-without-landfill-expansion-nepa-will-soon-have-garbage-problem-1.1770634
From the front page of the Sunday Times:
LANDFILL LEACHATE REACHING GROUNDWATER
You must read this important and disturbing article that confirms what many have suspected: we are already compromised and it will only get worse.
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/landfill-leachate-reaching-groundwater-1.1769666
Excerpts:
“Chemicals from Keystone Sanitary Landfill are contaminating groundwater — a recurring problem for more than a decade that appears to violate state law, a Sunday Times review of state Department of Environmental Protection tests found.”
“Mark Szybist, staff attorney for environmental group PennFuture, said any confirmed discharges would surely violate the state’s Clean Streams Law. He found it “problematic” that they don’t show up on eFacts, the DEP’s enforcement tracking tool.”
“Leachate is liquid that passes through a landfill, picking up chemicals and dissolved particles from the waste. Some call it “landfill tea.”” [Also known as “garbage juice”]
“Keystone’s leachate contains a wide and ever-changing variety of contaminants, according to documents in its February application to the DEP for permission to expand skyward 220 feet from its current peak. The expansion would extend the life of the landfill by almost 50 years.
In various tests in 2013 and 2014, DEP found acetone, t-Butyl alcohol, tetrachloroethene, toluene, tetrahydrofuran and methyl ethyl ketone in groundwater wells drilled on Keystone property.
Each of these chemicals are industrial solvents, typically found in paint or varnish thinners. Tetrachloroethene is widely used in dry cleaning. In high enough concentrations, they are all toxic to humans, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.”
“The landfill’s 2013 report claims “(volatile organic compounds) remain absent in the well,” despite DEP test results from May 2013 that show acetone and t-Butyl alcohol in that well. Both are considered volatile organic compounds.”
