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The Alliance For A Clean Environment |
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Scott gets landfill test, no witness |
Eagle/Times But it was offset by a defeat when his request for a witness to the testing was denied by DEP and landfill operator Waste Management Inc. "They must have something to hide," said Scott. "My view is DEP is in bed with Waste Management...to manipulate testing to limit any embarrassment to the operation." Scott, who lives in Douglass Township, and John W. "Bill" Fontaine II, a West Pottsgrove Township, Montgomery County, resident, convinced DEP officials to perform the tests, based on information they gathered for their appeal of a DEP permit allowing a 73-acre landfill expansion. Scott filed the appeal before the state Environmental Hearing Board last year. Berks County joined the lawsuit in February. The lawsuit claims the state failed to meet its responsibilities to notify the county and Douglass Township of the expansion permit application, and to give both an opportunity to comment on the adverse impact the landfill has on Berks property values. Scott, who said he has been aware of low-level radioactive waste at the landfill for sometime, |
wanted Anthony E. Mitchell, Philadelphia, an independent landfill consultant, to witness the testing. Mitchell said DEP was looking for strontium 90, the radioactive waste from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant meltdown in 1979. According to Mitchell, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had permitted the disposal of TMI waste at the landfill. Treated radioactive waste also has been brought to the landfill from Cabot Performance Materials, Boyertown, and Interstate Nuclear Services, a Royersford, Montgomery County, laundry, said Mitchell. Clarke D. Rupert, a spokesman in DEP's Conshohocken office, said radiation testing was performed on leachate and soils from the landfill. Leachate is the contaminated liquid produced when rainfall percolates through garbage. According to Andrew S. Levine, an attorney for Waste Management, DEP likely will make the test results public. In addition to DEP's lack of notification of the permit application, Scott said the department should not have granted the expansion permit until necessary zoning changes were approved by West Pottsgrove Township, and Waste Management received its federal clean air permit. In December, West Pottsgrove leaders rejected the firm's application to have an area zoned for home building changed to accommodate the landfill. Tina Suarez-Murias, a DEP spokeswoman, said Waste Management's clean air plan |
is still under review, and no deadline has been set for its approval. She added the expansion could not begin without the permit. Elizabeth A. Biehl, Waste Management community relations coordinator, said Wednesday the company recently reapplied for the zoning change. She said the firm was not given an explanation as to why the first application was rejected. No timetable has been set for the $29 million expansion project, Biehl said, adding it could take months for the approvals "The timing for the entire process is in the hands of the township," she said. But the landfill is quickly running out of disposal space, and Waste Management has scaled back its average daily intake of 4,000 tons to 1,200 tons. "We have disposal capacity into the beginning of next year," Biehl said. Alan S. Miller, special assistant to Berks County Solicitor Jeffrey L. Schmehl, said a full hearing on the lawsuit is expected to be conducted within a few months. And if all the permits and approvals are in place while the hearing is taking place, Waste Management probably could go ahead with its expansion, he said. Injunctions to stop construction are rarely granted by the Environmental Hearing Board, Miller added. Scott, however, said he won't back down. "I'm not through with them," he added. "I think there will be a heavy price to pay for what DEP is doing." |
The Reading Eagle © July 25, 1996
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