The Lower Saucon Township Planning Commission voted 5-0 Thursday to recommend preliminary approval of Bethlehem Landfill’s expansion plans, subject to conditions identified in a Hanover Engineering compliance letter being met. The commission also voted to recommend granting various waivers identified in the Oct. 19 letter, which are needed for the plans to proceed.
Township engineer Brien Kocher told the commission the waivers “look just like the waivers…requested with the previous plans.”
Landfill attorney Maryanne Garber said that since her client appeared before the LSTPC in January, its Phase 5 expansion plans have been downsized.
“At that point in time, the project we were proposing was for 117 acres of disposal area,” she said. Since then, Garber said the disposal area has been reduced to 86 acres and moved “away from the Lehigh River (and) further away from Bull Run.”
“We have since offered all of the conservation easement area to the township–193 acres in total–and that was accepted by the township (council) at their Aug. 30 meeting,” she added.
Planning commission solicitor Linc Treadwell said the “township is searching for a third party that would also be required” for the easement, which he said is subject to court approval.
The commission also spent some time discussing approximately 4,000 trees that would be planted as part of a reforestation plan.
As part of the reforestation program, there will be an 18-month maintenance period during which dead or dying trees will have to be replaced, Treadwell said.
With regard to stormwater monitoring, a landfill representative said the current monitoring plan would be updated with new discharge points after the development takes place, and in answer to a question told commission chair Craig Kologie he wasn’t aware of any state-mandated “benchmarking” of current vs. future stormwater quality.
Several residents addressed the commission with concerns about the expansion plans during the public comment period, and one man who stood at the podium and tried to speak was not permitted to after commission vice chair Tom Carocci said he is neither a resident nor a taxpayer in the township.
Lower Saucon Township Council and other governmental bodies in the township have meeting participation rules that limit who can speak during public comment periods to residents and non-resident property owners/taxpayers.
One of two township police officers who were monitoring the meeting approached the man at the podium, after he remained there in spite of being told he wasn’t going to be allowed to speak.
The man, who was identified as “Frank,” then agreed to sit down, but said he wanted it noted that he attempted to speak and was denied the opportunity to do so.
Above, a man who was identified as “Frank” tries to address the Lower Saucon Township Planning Commission Thursday. He was refused permission because he isn’t a resident/taxpayer. One of two police officers who were at the meeting walked to the podium when it appeared that the man was unwilling to sit down. He ultimately did, but said he wanted it noted that he was denied the opportunity to speak under the rules that are in place.
Resident Victoria Opthof-Cordaro, an opponent of the expansion plans and current township council candidate, criticized the conservation easement, which she said is swapping out environmentally sensitive areas like a unique forested area for less sensitive land, such as property on which an abandoned home is located.
Opthof-Cordaro also criticized the three-minute time limit to which speakers had to adhere; another requirement that is standard at most township public meetings.
Ginger Petrie, a vocal opponent of the expansion and one of the parties to a lawsuit that seeks to stop it, told the planning commission “at this point, we’re assuming (the expansion) is a go.”
She said one area that would become part of the enlarged landfill is a forested mountainside with a 30 percent slope and a stream running beneath it.
“There’s a lot of rock, there’s a lot of animals and that water goes into the Lehigh River,” she said.
Petrie told the commissioners they should stand at the bottom of that hillside before approving the expansion plans, adding that their names will be attached to the decision to alter the landscape.
Lower Saucon Township resident Lynn Hill addresses the township planning commission Thursday.
Resident Lynn Hill also attempted an emotional appeal against the expansion by holding up a painting representing the forested mountainside along the south bank of the Lehigh River.
“What this plan is calling for would be changing the view you see here, and we would be looking at garbage,” she said.
Hill said only about 21 percent of the garbage currently accepted at the three landfills operating in Northampton County is from within the county.
“Having trash shipped from the New York metro area to here doesn’t motivate anyone to reduce the amount of waste. It only perpetuates the problem we have now,” she said.
Hill described the conservation easement documents as flawed, telling the commission they have “more holes…than you could drive a truck through.”
“I encourage you to read this document, because it is not a conservation easement as a normal person would recognize one,” she said. “It doesn’t help the wildlife. It doesn’t help the trees.”
In response to her criticism, Treadwell said the conservation easement document “was modeled after the standard conservation easement that the township uses to preserve any property we purchase with open space money.” Some of the exceptions contained in it are for the monitoring activity that will be required of the landfill, he added.
At the conclusion of the meeting, a resident asked about a plan to construct 42 townhomes along Fire Lane that was added to the commission’s agenda late Wednesday and removed early Thursday, after a story about it appeared on Saucon Source.
The man said he and his neighbors felt “gaslit” by the fact that they knew nothing about the proposal–and wouldn’t have known the plans were going to be discussed if not for the article.
When he asked if he could be kept apprised of future agenda items, the commission recommended that he sign up for email notifications from the township. To register for the emails, click here.
In addition to Kologie and Carocci, the other three members of the planning commission who were present at Thursday’s meeting were Jeffrey Schmehl, Doug Woosnam and Hazem Hijazi.
Members Jennifer Peters and Christopher Nagy were absent.
