DEP sets public meeting to address landfill plans
The state DEP denied the first phase of the landfill application, then reversed that decision.
GROVE CITY, Pa. — The state Department of Environmental Protection is inviting residents to a meeting about the reopening and expansion of a municipal waste landfill.
The meeting about the old 99-acre landfill in Liberty Township, halfway between Grove City and the Prime Outlets Mall, is set for 7 p.m. Feb. 24.
It’s been years since the last public meeting about the landfill. The DEP denied the first phase of Tri-County Industries’ application in 2005 over concerns the landfill would attract birds that could interfere with planes using the Grove City airport about a mile away, said Freda Tarbell, spokeswoman for the DEP in Meadville.
But the company appealed the denial and gave more information that caused the agency to reverse its decision, approving the first phase, a harms/benefits analysis, Tarbell said.
The company submitted 10 years’ worth of daily documents that showed a plane had never struck a bird at a New Jersey landfill that was near an airport, she said.
The company also will hire a full-time employee to be in charge of bird control and will use pyrotechnics to scare them away, she added.
A spokesman for Tri-County could not be reached to comment.
The application is entering the second phase, which is a technical review of the landfill plans.
The DEP believes a new public meeting is necessary because of those changes in the application, the fact that so much time has passed since the last meeting, and the likelihood that new people have moved into the area, she said.
Tarbell said 44.5 acres of the old landfill closed in 1990, forced out of business by stricter standards for waste disposal.
“When the Solid Waste Act went into effect in 1988, thousands of landfills had to update or close,” she said.
Landfills now have to be double-lined with plastic, and the DEP has made it a condition that Tri-County move the waste out of the old section, which is unlined, she said.
Bruce Cummings, a Grove City resident, belongs to an activist group called Citizens’ Environmental Association of the Slippery Rock Area. The group protested the landfill after the DEP received the application in August 2004.
He said last week that the group, which has around 100 members, will be out in force again.
He expects a large crowd at the Grove City High School Auditorium, where the meeting will take place.
Cummings lives about a quarter-mile from the landfill. But its opponents are from all over the area, he said.
Cummings said that though the DEP focused on the airport issue, there are other issues that should be considered such as home values and the impact on the community.
The high school and its ballfields are downwind of the landfill, he pointed out.
A quarter of a mile away from the site is The Legends, a development of single-family homes and condos that were built before Tri-County resubmitted its application, he said.
“It’s not the right place for a trash mountain,” he said, adding that the company proposes a height of 139 feet for the waste.
starmack@vindy.com