How you can participate and be heard:

NUMBERS COUNT!  LETTERS COUNT!  Arriving NO LATER THAN 6:30pm is important so that AS SOON AS YOU TESTIFY (either verbally or by letter), YOU CAN LEAVE.

WRITE UP YOUR COMMENTS so you can hand them in to the recorder (WHETHER YOU SPEAK PUBLICLY OR NOT).  YOU CAN ALSO MAIL YOUR COMMENTS IN UNTIL OCT. 13.  Here’s the format that’s required:

1. At the TOP of the letter, it should say, “ELCON PROJECT, DEP PUBLIC HEARING, SEPTEMBER 30, 2015, LANGHORNE, PA”
2. You must include YOUR NAME, ADDRESS, ZIP CODE–no need to add your apt. #
3.  Address to:   Team Leader, Technical Review Committee, Hazardous Waste Siting,

PA DEP,  Southeast Regional Office, 2 E. Main Street, Norristown, PA 19401-4915

4.  Include among your 4-5 sentences the following:

– Ask/request/urge/ that PA DEP deny/not approve the Elcon site application permit.

– Choose your own reasons (1-2 sentences re: economics, health, property values, safety [explosions, spills, flooding], protecting the “commons” [threats to breathable air, clean drinking water, forests, rivers, parks], food safety [farm animals, organic produce], tanker truck/tanker rail cars/barges bringing toxic material from all over the Eastern seaboard,  etc.–sadly we have a WIDE SPECTRUM of potential disasters to choose from!

– Ask that PA DEP extend the WRITTEN public comment period (since people who attend the hearing may see or hear things things they’ll want to comment on)

Why it’s important:

Here’s the bottom line of what ELCON is planning to do at this site (according to their APPLICATION AND OTHER INTERNAL DOCUMENTS)–as researched by the Clean Air Council

– ELCON has applied to receive 596 different kinds of wastes (all claims about odor, noise, frackwater are NON-BINDING unless they are in the application)

– ELCON’S application (Appendix 2 with waste codes for state-regulated residual wastes include

Code 803 – Drilling fluid waste (OIL & GAS drilling mud, other drilling liquids other that fracking fluid and spent lubricant)

Code 807 – Basic sediment (OIL & GAS production storage impurities, sediment from produce oil at storage tank battery)

Code 808         – Servicing fluid (OIL & GAS production well maintenance/work over fluids, oil/water based mud and foam)

Code 809 – Spent lubricant waste (spent OIL & GAS drilling lubricants, spent plug drilling lubricants)

Code 810 – Drill cuttings (OIL & GAS drill cuttings)

plus a list of 36 other code categories including  Code 203 – Acid mine drainage sludge

– ELCON will generate 800 tons of hazardous sludge per year and 5,000 tons of hazardous salts per year sent to landfills

– ELCON’s storage tanks may (at any time) receive raw industrial wastewater containing 120 mg./l of Mercury, 900mg/l Lead, 340 mg/l Cadmium

– ELCON’s treated wastewater contains .025 mg/l Mercury, .025mg/l Lead, .025mg/l Cadmium

– ELCON’s thermal oxidizer is planned to reach 1,600 degrees F and is build to be used up to 2,192 degrees F

– ELCON’s documents use the terms:  “thermal oxidizer burner” and “sludge oven burner”

– ELCON is a “Limited Liability Corporation” and has recently been purchased by an Israeli corporation

– none of ELCON’s application documents include a 20 MMBtu/hour burner that must be applied for separately;  this facility will be a significant source of air emissions in an area that already has serious ozone levels (Bucks County has the second worst air quality in PA, after Philadelphia)

– Clean Air Council staff estimate that when considering the large quantities of hazardous fracking sludge and other hazardous waste Elcon wants to be permitted to be treated at this site, it could become THE LARGEST HAZARDOUS WASTE TREATMENT FACILITY IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

Just to refresh your memory:

– the proposed Elcon site is approx. 10 miles from George School/Pennswood Village/Newtown Friends School (located in Falls Township, 33 acres in the old U.S. Steel site)

– this site has wetlands and is surrounded on three sides by the Delaware River in an area that has flooded in the past–1/2 mile from the river

The proposed Elcon Site is bordered by the Delaware River and its wetlands on three sides.

– the Delaware River and the Delaware River Basin are the source of our water for bathing, drinking, food preparation, agriculture, many schools, hospitals, and residences

– the PERMANENT jobs Elcon is promising are around 50 (i.e.,  jobs handling hazardous and toxic materials)

– this site is in a densely populated area–Yardley, Morrisville, Bristol, Lower Makefield, Middletown Twn.

WE CAN STOP THIS IF WE SHOW UP IN NUMBERS (AND WRITE LETTERS) IN OPPOSITION.

If you have the time, watch the 1-hour lecture by Cornell University engineering professor Tony Ingraffea entitled “Shale Gas and Oil Development: Latest Evidence on Leaky Wells, Methane Emissions, and Energy Policy.”  It’s clear, factual AND understandable in layman’s language.

~ Marguerite Chandler