“Please be advised that the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will hold a public meeting on Tuesday, April 6, 2010 to receive public comment on the final cleanup report for the proposed relocation of Norfolk Southern’s Dillerville Rail Yard. The meeting will be held from 7-9 pm at the East Hempfield Township municipal building at 1700 Nissley Road. Members of the public are cordially invited to attend and participate in this very important meeting.
“The meeting is a result of a settlement agreement between DEP and a local citizens’ group, CAARRT, Community Activist Against Rail Road Transgressions (formerly TRRAAC). CAARRT had appealed the remedial investigation/cleanup plan submitted by ARM Group on behalf of Franklin and Marshall College. CAARRT withdrew its appeal conditioned upon DEP providing the public an opportunity to comment on the final cleanup report. DEP is not legally required to hold such a meeting or to provide public comment on final cleanup reports under the state cleanup law. CAARRT is appreciative of DEP seeking public input. Such a public comment hearing before the DEP on a final cleanup plan has never happened before in Pennsylvania. However, DEP is holding this meeting in response to the significant concern that the public has expressed about the cleanup.
“The cleanup involves a 10 acre site in Manheim Township adjacent to the Little Conestoga Creek that was formerly the town dump. The site is presently owned by the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (LCSWMA) and is being cleaned up with tens of millions of state and federal tax dollars as part of Franklin and Marshall’s Northwest Gateway Project. Franklin and Marshall secured the funding to enable it to relocate its athletic fields to the former Armstrong site in exchange for Norfolk Southern relocating part of the Dillerville Rail Yard to the former dump.
“CAARRT consists of concerned residents of the Barrcrest, Old School Lane Hills, and Gentry Heights neighborhoods and has expressed its opposition to the relocation of the rail yard to this site because it is so close to these established neighborhoods. CAARRT believes there is a better alternative site, but its suggestions have never been taken seriously.
“CAARRT has concerns about many aspects of the cleanup and will provide comment on them at the public meeting. They include the following issues:
1. Why hasn’t East Hempfield Township been provided with copies of environmental permit applications or status reports on the cleanup?
2. Why wasn’t all of the waste removed from the site?
3. Will stormwater runoff from the rail yard migrate through the remaining waste and into Little Conestoga Creek?
4. During the cleanup, DEP documented 180 overweight trucks hauling the old waste for redisposal at Frey Farm Landfill. Why hasn’t any enforcement action occurred?
5. Why has DEP provided Growing Greener funds to this project when there is a viable responsible party, LCSWMA?
6. Why is LCSWMA profiting from its pollution, namely charging tipping fees for the redisposal of its waste? Franklin and Marshall is paying those fees and claiming them as its private matching funds in order to receive $10 million from the Governor.
7. During the excavation at the dump, they found dozens of drums. Whose drums were they, when were they disposed, what did they contain, and why wasn’t the public and local governments notified when they were found?
8. ARM Group claims disposal of waste at the dump ceased in 1962. However, CAARRT has discovered a contract between Lancaster Malleable and the prior owners of the dump allowing disposal of foundry sand in 1980. Foundry sand is one of the pollutants discovered at the dump during the cleanup.
“Please attend this very important public meeting to hear the facts and to express your questions and concerns.
“Donations can be made to CAARRT, PO Box 4155, Lancaster, PA 17604-4155”
