Chris Kelly: Like Dimock, Keystone expansion is a preventable disaster

Jun. 21--Backlit by a benevolent sun, then-Gov. Tom Corbett, R-Drillers, anchored a fake news flotilla down the Susquehanna River on an idyllic August morning in 2011.

The three-day kayaking tour through Wyoming and Luzerne counties was scripted to present Corbett as a hale and hearty outdoorsman protecting and promoting the natural beauty of Pennsylvania. In a press release, Corbett said he was paddling to "promote Pennsylvania's natural resources, vast recreational activities and their positive impact on our economy, resulting in jobs and a better quality of life for our residents."

At the time, tourism accounted for more than 400,000 jobs -- nearly 7% of all employed Pennsylvanians. The industry injected about $33 billion into the state's economy annually, generating about $3.4 billion in state and local tax revenue.

As a small gaggle of local reporters waited for Corbett to drift mightily by, his press wranglers made it clear the nonevent would be "pictures only." Spontaneous attempts at journalism would be ignored. Questions that might inject objective reality into the carefully staged frame were not welcome.

That was the only kind I had, so I asked anyway.

--If the tourism industry is so important, why did the governor slash state tourism aid by 70% in his first budget?

--Why did Corbett open state forests -- the best destinations we have to offer tourists and ourselves -- to natural gas drillers?

--Every poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Pennsylvanians -- Democrats and Republicans -- want drillers to pay a fair severance tax like they do everywhere else. Why is the governor so adamantly against a fair severance tax while he cuts funding for health care, education and other public services?

--The governor is bound to get thirsty from all that kayaking. Would he accept a tall, cloudy, methane-infused glass of contaminated well water from Dimock (Township in Susquehanna County)?

As promised, these questions were greeted with stone-faced silence. The hale and hearty outdoorsman grinned as the lazy current carried him downstream.

"Get a boat and come on in," Corbett called to the shore. "It's fun."

Voters capsized Corbett's kayak three years later, but the lingering damage done during his one-term reign of error is a case study in how politicians promote preventable disasters that profit the powerful at the eternal expense of the public.

The proposed expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill in Dunmore and Throop is a preventable disaster in progress. If approved, "Mount Trashmore" will defile and define not just its "host communities," but all of Northeast Pennsylvania for the next half-century and beyond. It will stain the region as a vast dump unfit for business investment, job creation or family relocation.

Who chooses to move into the shadow of a mountain of trash? No one who can afford to live and raise a family Anywhere Else. What major employer wants to bring jobs to a region whose most visible industry is garbage? None that can invest Anywhere Else.

"If you're on the fence (about moving here), it doesn't just knock you off the fence, it makes you run away from the fence," said Pat Clark, a founding member of the anti-expansion grassroots group Friends of Lackawanna.

And yet the state Department of Environmental "Protection" is weighing whether to consign the families and businesses of our region to being dumped on with mostly out-of-state trash for the next 42-plus years to benefit a single family accustomed to getting the best government money can buy.

"It really is a state permit to pollute," Pat said. "It's giving an entity the state-sanctioned right to desecrate your future forever. That's just not how environmental protection is supposed to work."

I called Pat on Friday to get an update on FOL's fight against the expansion, which is in its sixth year. The typical time to process a landfill expansion application is around nine months, he said. Neither of us expected FOL's "Quixotic" crusade to last long.

"I think that tells you something," Pat said. "That they're still considering this shows that the opposition has made a difference. "We'll watch and wait until we get a decision and take it from there."

DEP is in its final technical review phase of the proposed expansion. A 60-day public comment period began May 1 and closes June 30 at 4 p.m. If you want to be heard, the time to speak out is now. In its environmental review, DEP regulators laughably declared the benefits of the expansion "clearly outweigh" the known and potential harms.

Keystone seized on the positive review as evidence the landfill is a state-of-the-art facility committed to doing business in the cleanest, most environmentally friendly way possible. Maybe, but no matter how well-run it's still a landfill surrounded by homes, businesses, schools and families.

For decades, Keystone owner Louis DeNaples has played the benevolent son shining over Dunmore. Like the gas drillers who toss crumbs of their prosperity to appear neighborly and generous, DeNaples has "donated" fire trucks, police stations, stadium lights and other shiny baubles presented as free but intended as downpayments on expanding his business.

When the ungrateful recipients of his "gifts" rose up against the expansion at the voting polls and public meetings, the benevolent son darkened. In October, landfill officials threatened to demand the return of $21 million in past reimbursements and deferred debt if Borough Council failed to override Mayor Tim Burke's heroic veto of a zoning of an expansion-friendly zoning ordinance.

More recently, Keystone attorneys threatened to sue if Borough Council dared send a letter opposing the expansion to DEP. Council sent it anyway. So far, DeNaples hasn't sued, or demanded the $21 million. He is apparently counting on DEP to allow another preventable disaster like the one still ruining the quality of life in Dimock.

Pat also sees the parallels between the Dimock disaster and the Keystone expansion that would ruin our region.

"In both cases, it's the state sanctioning things they know will cause environmental damage," he said. "Fracking by its definition causes damage, and any landfill engineer will tell you that at some point, every plastic liner will fail. It's just a matter of time.

"When you're approving and sometimes promoting projects that by definition will cause environmental damage, you don't get to say you care about environmental protection."

Almost a decade has passed since I watched Tom Corbett sail the Susquehanna. On Monday, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro -- once rumored to be investigating public corruption in the Scranton School District -- charged Texas-based Cabot Oil & Gas with a raft of felony environmental crimes in Dimock.

A two-year grand jury investigation found that fracking polluted local water supplies and caused other environmental damage. Shapiro charged Cabot with seven counts of prohibition against discharge of industrial wastes, seven counts of prohibition against other pollution and one count of violating the Clean Streams Law. DEP cited the company for several violations in the past, with apparently little corrective affect.

A Cabot spokesman said the company was "offended" by the charges.

"Our history and involvement in the community shows a very different reality than what was painted in this narrative," George Stark said Thursday. "We take our responsibilities seriously and we are proud of our commitment to environmental stewardship."

I am offended that the fate of the landfill expansion and the region it would foul forever will be decided by a Department of Environmental "Protection" that apparently allowed Cabot to break the law and poison a community for nearly a decade.

If you are too, write to Roger Bellas, waste management program manager, DEP Northeast Regional Office, 2 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701, or email him at [email protected].

We may still get sold down the river, but we owe it to ourselves to paddle against the current.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, recently bought a kayak.

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