WILLIAMSPORT — The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) today announced that it has again denied a municipal waste landfill application originally submitted in 2006 by PA Waste LLC of Feasterville, Bucks County, for a site in Boggs Township, Clearfield County.
“The department’s Waste Management program staff has done a very thorough technical review of this application during the past several years, involving hundreds of pages of technical information,” DEP North-central Regional Director Marcus Kohl said.
“Our determination is that the application does not meet all of the municipal waste landfill regulations, and we have notified PA Waste LLC that it has been denied.”
Some of the technical deficiencies included sub-base contact with groundwater; improper leachate collection and treatment; inefficient functionality of the leachate detection zone; improper liner installation procedures; and inadequate erosion and sedimentation control measures.
PA Waste had submitted a permit application in September of 2006 for a new, double-lined 221-acre municipal waste landfill called “Camp Hope Run” to be built in Boggs Township. The landfill was proposed to accept 5,000 tons per day of municipal waste.
The Local Municipality Involvement Process meeting was held in January of 2007, and the application was determined to be administratively complete the following month.
In July of 2008, the department denied the application, primarily because of site suitability requirements in Act 101. PA Waste appealed this decision to the state Environmental Hearing Board (EHB). The EHB sustained the appeal in November 2010, and remanded the decision to the department.
The department resumed its review of the application, including site suitability, as part of the required environmental assessment and determined in late August of 2012 that the benefits outweighed the harms.
In January of 2013, at the request of local citizens and elected officials, the department held a public hearing attended by about 170 people to accept formal testimony. About three dozen people presented testimony during the public hearing, with the vast majority opposing the project.
In February of 2013, the department sent a technical deficiency letter to PA Waste, citing 71 deficiencies. A pre-denial letter was issued by the department in August 2013, explaining the remaining deficiencies. The department granted multiple extensions to PA Waste to submit additional technical information.
PA Waste’s November of 2014 submission did not address all of the deficiencies in the company’s municipal waste landfill permit application.
For more information and to view the denial letter, click here. Or, visit www.dep.state.pa.us, and click on regional resources, then north-central, then community information.
