“We finally found an honest whistleblower inside the Department of Environmental Protection,”

http://standardspeaker.com/news/dep-official-has-fill-worries-1.739344

DEP official has fill worries

BY KENT JACKSON (STAFF WRITER)
Published: April 22, 2010

An employee of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection took issue with a permit that his department gave to a company planning to fill a Hazleton mine pit with materials from demolition sites.

Chuck Rogers, a solid waste supervisor for the department, said the permit for a demonstration project doesn’t appear to cover the activities that Hazleton Creek Properties proposes.

They include placing waste directly into the environment, discharging waste to the land or waters of the state, and leaving waste behind after the project ends, Rogers wrote on March 24 in a memorandum.

Hazleton Creek said it met every condition that the department set while obtaining a permit through an open process in which Rogers played no role.

In the memo, Rogers asked how a reasonable inspector for the department could fail to place Hazleton Creek in violation of the permit for harming people or the environment.

As a consequence, Rogers wrote that he and the employees whom he directs want to be recused from handling inspections, complaints and reviews of the project.

“We finally found an honest whistleblower inside the Department of Environmental Protection,” said state House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, who represents Hazleton.

Eachus said the memo raises many of the concerns that he expressed last fall when asking the department to deny a permit to Hazleton Creek.

Frank Keel, a spokesman for Hazleton Creek, said leak of the memo was disturbing for many reasons and occurred during a contentious election season.

“One might speculate that there is more than a tinge of politics at work in these out-of-nowhere allegations,” Keel said in a statement. “The company met every condition and complied with every regulation set forth by the DEP over many months and in a very transparent process, which is why it was granted the permit to begin work on this environmentally and economically sound mine reclamation project.”

Eachus said he is concerned about the project because Hazleton Creek won’t have to install a liner before placing fill in the pit. He thought that the company should have posted a larger bond “so if there is a problem on this site the taxpayers of Hazleton and the commonwealth don’t have to pay the cleanup.”

Also, Eachus said Rogers’ memo confirms that the site should have been permitted and regulated like a landfill for construction and demolition debris.

Eachus said later in the year he might advocate a bill “to improve the transparency of these permit applications.”

In its permit application, Hazleton Creek asked to fill a 60-acre pit with a mixture of fine material from dredge material and construction and demolition sites. The operation will be part of an overall plan to reclaim 277 acres of mine land for an amphitheater and other businesses.

On March 12, the department approved Hazleton Creek’s application under the terms of a statewide general permit as a research and development project.

When granting the permit, the department also issued responses to public comments made earlier.

“Reclamation projects do not require a liner or other containment systems since the proposed chemical limits are considered protective without the need of a liner,” the department wrote in one response. While the department doesn’t require bonds to cover cleanup costs, it can require a greater bond if pollution occurs, another response said.

One condition of the permit, which the department can waive, said the total amount of waste on the site at any one time shall not exceed 50 tons. Another condition, cited by Rogers in the memo, said all solid waste and structures must be removed when the project ends.

Hazleton Creek plans to import 1.4 million cubic yards of fill and leave it in the pit, according to its permit application.

Rogers said he cannot discuss the issue.

But DEP spokesman Mark Carmon said Rogers wrote the memo for his supervisors.

“This was pretty much an internal document that was meant for discussion purposes,” Carmon said. “We’re going to have a look at the concerns that he raised.”

The memo was available as a public record for anyone who asked to review the department’s files on Hazleton Creek’s permit.

Although Rogers asked to be excused from making inspections, Carmon said the site will be inspected from the Wilkes-Barre office, where both he and Rogers work.

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, who supports the plan to develop the land for an amphitheater, said the permit was approved by the department’s main office in Harrisburg. No role was assigned to the Wilkes-Barre office or to Rogers, whose memo Barletta characterized as “an attack on DEP and the secretary made by a regional employee.”

Carmon said the department will develop a plan for inspecting the site, but added that Hazleton Creek hasn’t begun importing fill under conditions of the permit.

Before bringing in fine material from construction and demolition sites, the company must submit paperwork identifying each new source of the material.

kjackson@standardspeaker.com