Scranton Council to Review Landfill Leachate Issue

The Times Tribune

Scranton City Council said Thursday it is reviewing whether a recent change by the Scranton Sewer Authority in a permit for Keystone Sanitary Landfill violates a 1990 agreement between the city, authority and landfill regarding how the garbage juice called leachate is piped through Green Ridge.

Councilman Bill Gaughan said he and Councilman Wayne Evans recently met with Michele Dempsey, a leader of the civic group Friends of Lackawanna, which opposes the landfill’s proposed massive, nearly 50-year expansion. She gave them various documents, including the 1990 agreement and a change in a wastewater-discharge permit for the landfill issued by the sewer agency on Dec. 17 that adds a second line for leachate.

The issue of landfill leachate was raised anew during and after an incident on Sept. 24, when a mysterious, foul-smelling discharge of black fluid in a sewer line permeated parts of Green Ridge and Dunmore and caused some evacuations in those areas.

Last year, the DEP ruled out the landfill as a source of that discharge. Last month, the DEP announced its probe could not determine a source of the discharge.

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