B6—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 4,1980 2000 come to protest York County farm dump BY JOYCE BUPP Staff Correspondent SPRING GROVE - Support, in large numbers of voting citizens, was what North Codorus fanners fighting a proposed chemical dump were hoping for a fact finding meeting last Tuesday with the Depart* ment of Environmental Resources. And support was what they got, with an estimated 2000 people turning out at Spring Grove Junior High School to protest, to a person, the DER permit held by Sunny Farms, Ltd. to bury in dustrial and possibly hazardous wastes in North Codorus farmland. Farm owner Steve Marsh, president of the citizens’ group OUCH, Inc. (Op posing Unnecessary Chemical Hazards), chaired the session geared to bring out new facts that opponents hope may boost their drive for permit revokation. John Embich, assistant attorney general for the solid waste department told the citizens that DER recognizes Sunny Farms as a separate entity from Stabatrol, Inc., which recently purchased the corporate assets of Sunny Farm. The permit to dump industrial waste, issued in December of 1979, has been granted to Sunny Farms and is not to be transferrable. Who actually owns the land and who actually holds the dumping permit had been two key issues with area residents fighting the dumping proposal. Their concern focused on the former solid waste Regional Sales Manager Ray Kuhns 67 Roland Ave Chambersburg, PA 17201 717-264-3814 Distributors Pennsylvania Donald Everitt Mrfflintown 717-436-2561 W.F. Goring Co. Honetdale 717-253-0187 landfill that Sunny Farms had operated on the site, which was suspended in 1976 for violations of regulations during 1974. Among those violations was the illegal dumping of hazardous substances. OUCH, Inc., and its at torneys say they hope to use Sunny Farms history of operations as a lever -to demand that DER reopen the permit application for further considerationr If the permit studies are reopened, legislator working with the group figure that Stabatrol can be brought under a tough new state environmental law that took effect September 5,, which would require that DER look at the past operational history of dump permit applicants. One incident cited during the fact-finding dealt with a truckload of i&gallon drums that had been brought to Sunny Farms former solid waste facility in the Spring of 1974. When a bulldozer operated crushed a drum during waste burial, liquids inside the drum sprayed over the surrounding im mediate area. A DER inspector hap pened to be observing the process. While that truck was then sent back with most of the remaining waste, a DER spokesman said records showed the truck weighed 1200 pounds less upon leaving than when it had arrived. Farmers demanded to know if contents of the drums crushed had ever Marvin J. Horst Lebanon 717-272-0871 W it J Dairy Sales Oxford 717-529-2569 New Jersey Hockenb ory Electric Ringoes 201-782-5950 Delaware Hlott Refrigeration Wyoming 302-697-3050 been removed or records Farms posted a bond show its location. obligation of $1.2 million Rural residents of the with the state for its 1979 valleys adjacent to the steep permit, the firm has paid out ridge dumpsite have to date $15,000, based on a repeatedly told DER of- f ee 0 { $5,000 per acre of land ficials that the area is laced plans to use for actual with old worked-out irdfr mine veins and shafts. Their Officials of DER readily pleas had been (turned aside, concurred with 93rd district with DER representatives legislator A. Carville Foster previously insisting that if who insisted that the sum is such shafts were in far too small. Opponents existence, they would have suggest millions of dollars been found during geological might be needed should a sunrey ofthesite. dump-related disaster ever However, _°ER strike the land, water, health hydrologist Steve Curran or earning ability of the told the fact-finding area’s farmers and rural audience that an 1874 map, residents, just recently brought to his Additionally, a federal attention, does indicate tne regulation slated to take presence of mines in the effect on November 19 will ' require operators of Ifc noted that only one hazardous dumping 8x4z20-foot shaft is uidicated facilities to have assets of at and the exact location of the least $lO million, which former access opening is not stabatrol, Inc. does not now known. possess. “But, if ifis discovered by one after another, Sunny Farms during its residents of the valleys’ disposal process, DER farms and their neighbors would require that no wastes rose to the microphone to be buried in that spot,” he question other aspects of the added. dumping proposals: the His statement evoked engineering and stability of laughter, boots and hollering the plastic encased vaulting from the mostly well- f or the wastes, the potential assemblage. run-off problems from the OUCH me. s attorney Ed hillside site, possibilities of Golla claimed that Sminy eventual storage of nuclear Farms committed perjury wastes at the site, mixing of on its application by not the various chemicals and including information on length of the toxicity of the those old, mines nnd oicitcndls suggested that concealment of such facts would be reason enough for revoking the permit. 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PAUL HORNING House subcommittee Monday released a list of some 250 sites across the country where hazardous chemicals might be leaking into groundwater supplies. Their report called on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to “locate potential threats to ground water and eliminate them before precious groundwater supplies are irreversibly damaged.” C. M. HIGH CO. 320 Kin* St Myerstown, PA 170C7 Phone 717-<6fi-7544 215-267-7208