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
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Chambersburg, PA 17201
717-264-3814
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Donald Everitt
Mrfflintown
717-436-2561
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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
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Oxford
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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.
Financial bonding of the
operation was also a sore
point with the dump op
ponents. Although Sunny
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Ball, called the DER ap
proved permit methods the
“cheapest current
technology available,” and
claimed it would “allow the
operators to make a killing,”
He cited an EPA study
recently published claiming
that 90 percent of the
nation’s landfills are leaking
toxic substances into the
ground water.
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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.”
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