DEP Settles With Keystone Landfill In Lackawanna County For In-Lieu Of Penalty Project Over Water Pollution Caused By Leachate

On December 11, the Department of Environmental Protection announced it has reached a Consent Order and Agreement (CO&A) with Keystone Sanitary Landfill (KSL) in Lackawanna County for violations related to leachate management and groundwater impacts at its facility in the boroughs of Dunmore and Throop. 

The agreement calls for Keystone, in lieu of paying a $112,905 civil penalty, to provide landfill space for approximately 2,500 tons of construction and demolition waste dumped illegally, by another party, at a site in nearby Taylor Borough.

“Keystone is being held accountable for these violations and an illegal dump site will be cleaned up,” said Mike Bedrin, Director of DEP’s Northeast Regional Office in Wilkes-Barre. “The landfill has made adjustments to its leachate management plan and has also fixed a previous source of groundwater degradation.”

The violations at Keystone were noted during an evaluation of the landfill’s groundwater monitoring and an investigation of its leachate storage lagoons.  

During that investigation, department staff determined that leachate leaking from a liner in the lagoon seeped into and had impacted groundwater.  In addition, DEP also found that Keystone had stored leachate in the lagoons above regulatory limits. 

Those issues are a violation of the Solid Waste Management Act. 

Keystone Landfill has since addressed these violations and has updated its leachate management plan which included re-constructing the lagoons and lowering the amount of leachate it stores in them.

The agreement to provide landfill space for the illegally dumped waste is part of a Community Environmental Project that the department has been discussing with Keystone. 

In 2017, Michael Stine of Northampton County admitted to dumping construction and demolition debris two years earlier at a private business along Keyser Ave in Taylor.  Stine, having been prosecuted by the State Attorney General’s Office, has not removed the debris. 

The amount of landfill space Keystone has agreed to provide is equivalent to the monetary amount of the civil penalty. 

The property owner has agreed to pay the costs of transporting the debris to the landfill.

As per the agreement, Keystone Landfill has one year to complete the project in Lackawanna County.

Click Here for a copy of the Consent Order and Agreement.

Media questions should be directed to Colleen Connolly, DEP Northeast Regional Office, 570-826-2035 or send email to: coconnolly@pa.gov. 

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[Posted: December 11, 2020]  PA Environment Digest