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Pottstown Landfill Closure
ACE Position Statement - December, 2003

Waste Management’s CLOSURE PLAN for the Pottstown Landfill must be the SAFEST, not the least costly. There are several serious cutting edge issues involved. Decisions concerning Pottstown Landfill closure will impact our region and the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens, especially our children, for decades.

• ACE plans to fully investigate all related issues and share our findings with the community task force and the public.

• ACE plans to maintain its responsibility as a watchdog to oppose all unnecessary health risks, especially for children.

• ACE believes that DEP needs to assume its responsibility, assuring safe and effective Pottstown Landfill closure. The next several decades of Pottstown Landfill’s air and water pollution in our community are in the balance.

1. Article 1, Section 27 of the PA Constitution gives us the right to CLEAN AIR and PURE WATER.
2. PA DEP’s mission is to protect PA air, land, and water from pollution and to provide for the health and safety of its citizens through a cleaner environment.
3. It is DEP’s mission and responsibility to maintain and preserve our clean air and pure water for the benefit of all people, including generations yet to come.

• ACE does NOT believe in NEGOTIATING with a corporate polluter that has a long history of violations, legal problems, and deception.

1. Pottstown Landfill’s hazardous air pollution will not be reduced anytime in the near future.
2. Pottstown Landfill closure is really about the health of our children and their children.
3. According to a judge, …“fraud, misrepresentation, and dishonesty apparently became part of the operating culture of this company”….
4. Why would anyone expect our community to negotiate with Waste Management over the health and safety of future generations?

• ACE is committed to remain independent advocates for the health and well being of all area children and to work toward the following closure process:

1. Instead of negotiations with Waste Management over future health risks for the next several decades, it is ACE’s position that DEP needs to REQUIRE the SAFEST CLOSURE PROCEDURES concerning Pottstown Landfill gas and leachate. DEP must REQUIRE REDUCTIONS of harmful air pollution NOW.
2. ACE and a community task force will investigate the safest closure procedures for Pottstown Landfill gas and leachate and present our findings to DEP and the public.

Ø    The long-term health and financial threats to our community need to be clearly analyzed and understood.

Ø    The closure plan for the Pottstown Landfill needs to be designed and implemented with public health and safety as the highest priority, not the costs to Waste Management.
What will the financial and physical long term costs be to the community if the SAFEST CLOSURE process is not REQUIRED by DEP?

ACE believes that long term health and safety threats to our children are non-negotiable.

Ø    Negotiations on children’s health threats are unacceptable.

Ø    Negotiations with Waste Management concerning decades of exposure risks to our children are inappropriate.

Ø    In our view it can only be considered a model closure if children’s health threats are reduced NOW. Why?

1. March, 2003, EPA admitted that fetuses and children under 2 are far more vulnerable to certain cancer causing chemicals than adults. Children 3 to 15 are at least three times more vulnerable. Those chemicals are continuously emitted from the Pottstown Landfill.
2. Current government standards for those chemicals do NOT protect children.
3. Current regulations do not address radiation or dioxin, the most potent carcinogens emitted from the Pottstown Landfill.
4. It is our duty to protect children who cannot protect themselves.

In ACE’s view the closure process should include the following:

1. A grant should be issued by DEP to hire independent landfill closure experts (much the same as a TAG grant), to research the safest possible ways to deal with Pottstown Landfill’s hazardous gas and leachate over the next several decades.
2. ACE and/or the community task force should evaluate all information submitted by the experts and decide on the safest, most protective closure plan.
3. The community task force should submit its closure plan to the community for review.
4. DEP should hold a public hearing and allow all residents to comment on CLOSURE plans of the community task force.
5. DEP should review all public hearing comments and then require Waste Management to use the SAFEST CLOSURE PLANS for the Pottstown Landfill in accordance with:
    A. PA Constitution, Article 1, Section 27. The people have a right to clean air and pure water. As trustee, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain these for the benefit of all the people. including generations yet to come, and;
    B. DEP’s mission to protect PA’s air, water, and land from pollution and to provide for the health and safety of its citizens through a cleaner environment.

ACE bases our position on the documented health crisis around the Pottstown Landfill and the urgent need for reductions of toxic exposures risks:

1. PA Cancer Registry statistics for children who live around the landfill (1995 to 1999) are 92.5% higher than the national average and almost 100% higher than the state and tri county averages.
2. 8 of the 11 most common cancers in the U.S. are highly elevated over the national average, around the Pottstown Landfill. Many of these cancers are documented to be elevated around other landfills.
3. EPA’s admission that infant mortality, neonatal mortality, malignant tumors, cerebrovascular disease, and chronic lower respiratory disease are all higher here than even Philadelphia and Reading.
4. ACE’s preliminary mapping shows alarming patterns of cancers near and in the predominant wind direction of the Pottstown Landfill. Additional mapping is expected to reveal alarming patterns of asthma, neurological problems, and other illnesses associated with many chemicals continuously emitted by the Pottstown Landfill.

ACE believes that there must be an on the record public hearing for the End-Use Plan, so that everyone, (not just a small group) will understand and have an opportunity to comment on all major implications of closure of the Pottstown Landfill in addition to health issues, such as:

• BONDING REQUIREMENTS for closure
• Details on the MAJOR LIABILITY
• How this will interface with BROWNFIELDS and UNPROTECTIVE regulations
• How these issues interface with GAS FLARES, TURBINES, LEACHATE SYSTEMS, and LANDFILL COVERS

These issues are not completely understood by most people, even many who are involved in the process. Waste Management’s current End Use Plan is unacceptable. All consequences of every decision and how it interfaces with others, need to be fully discussed and disclosed to the public, including researched options that are fully evaluated, before Waste Management goes forward with any closure procedures.

ACE
P.O. Box 3063
Stowe, PA 19464
ace@acereport.org





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