Oct 31, 2017 4 min read

A proposed new landfill at a waste disposal facility in Bulger brought questions and opposition from some locals during a meeting last week in Smith Township.

Township officials closed a conditional use hearing on Greentree-based MAX Environmental’s application that would allow it to build a new residual-waste landfill at its Bulger facility, which mainly handles drill cuttings from the oil and gas industry and soil from former industrial sites that are being redeveloped that isn’t clean fill but isn’t considered hazardous.

Wednesday’s proceeding was a continuation of the hearing that began Sept. 28 on MAX Environmental’s application for local approval to build a new, roughly 21-acre residual-waste landfill and processing plant at its waste disposal facility in Bulger. Supervisors agreed to hold a special meeting Nov. 16 to discuss proposed conditions they could place on the project, and could render a decision on the application then.

The company hasn’t yet submitted its application to the state Department of Environmental Protection for the approval needed for the new project.

About 15 people attended the meeting. Several pressed officials and MAX representatives about the plans.

Cathy Lodge, who lives in area of Bulger that lies in Robinson Township, urged supervisors to “wait to see what they ask for in their state application” and gather additional information before making a decision.

“This is still a relatively new waste stream. We are learning more each day about the harms to the public from the oil and gas industry,” Lodge added. “Since there is no rush to construct the new landfill, demand that Smith Township be given a health and environmental impact study to weigh before they give their decision.”

At a different point in the meeting, company manager Carl Spadaro noted the “submittal of the DEP application isn’t a requirement for submittal of the conditional use application.”

The company’s plans for the new landfill include accepting technically enhanced, naturally occurring radioactive material, or TENORM, generated by oil and gas activities.

Spadaro said the company wants “to be at a competitive, level edge” with other landfills.

“If we take 20 truckloads of waste from one source, and it’s never triggered, and the 21st, or the next truck comes in and it triggers the alarm, we want to be able to accept that waste, and not have to turn that customer away because one truckload out of a number of truckloads happens to trigger the alarm or the monitor,” Spadaro said.

Spadaro said MAX’s application to the township included a location for the waste-processing plant but would need to file a separate land-development application with the township to build the plant.

“If our understanding is correct, we will submit such a plan to the township for approval at a later date,” Spadaro said in an email after the meeting.

Jay LaWrocka, who owns property in Bulger, said his family’s well water had gone bad in the mid-1960s after the Bulger facility was opened by a company called Mill Service.

He also worried contractors working on the project for MAX might “cut corners.”

“I worked in corporations and I know what happens with the lowest bidder in some companies. I’m not saying in yours. I’m saying in some companies,” LaWrocka said. “You just maybe don’t go to the letter of what you’re supposed to, and that concerns me.”

Spadaro said third-party contractors would “install liner systems and everything else” for the new landfill and DEP requires a third-party consulting company to approve each phase of work.

“So the chances of somebody cutting corners and that getting approved are practically eliminated,” Spadaro said. “And DEP reviews and approves each phase of construction before we can move on.”

LaWrocka also said he wanted an independent study of the area before the project moved forward.

“We’ve been dumped on for 60 years,” he said after the meeting. “Isn’t it time we looked back and see what the health and environmental effects have been so far before we go ahead?”