Elcon Toxic Waste Facility Meeting Tonight

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection will host an informational meeting tonight on Elcon Recycling’s proposed plans to construct and operate a hazardous waste treatment and storage facility along the Delaware River in Falls Township, Bucks County. The meeting will be held from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. at the Sheraton Bucks County Hotel, 400 Oxford Valley Road in Langhorne, Pa. The proposed 70,000 square foot toxic waste treatment facility in the Keystone Industrial Port Complex carries significant environmental risk.

“This facility would have devastating effects across the entire region, including in New Jersey. The air and water pollution from this hazardous waste facility will affect towns and communities on both sides of the river.  If there is a spill or a leak, our drinking water would be impacted for millions of people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “This is a dangerous facility that puts people around the Delaware River at risk. We need to work together to stop this hazardous Elcon proposal no matter which side of the River we live on.”

This issue becomes even more important because the Delaware River Basin Commission is proposing to allow fracking waste in the Delaware Basin. Fracking involves injecting huge amounts of water and chemicals in rock formations that can pollute surrounding aquifers and waterways. This requires mixing millions of gallons of water with toxic chemicals including volatile organic chemicals like benzene, methyl benzene, formaldehyde, and others that are linked to cancer.

“The reason Elcon wants to build this facility is to take in fracking waste. If the DRBC allows the treatment and dumping of fracking waste in the Basin, it will provide that much more incentive for Elcon to build this damaging facility. We could see the waste from this facility ending up in our drinking water. Fracking wastewater is dangerous because it contains over 600 different toxic chemicals, many of them carcinogenic. This could lead to pollution and contaminated drinking water,” said Tittel.

The Pennsylvania DEP will be discussing several permit applications by Elcon. The company’s application for a Solid Waste Management Permit for a Commercial Hazardous Waste Treatment and Storage Facility has been found administratively complete and a 10-month technical review began in July 2018.

Dozens of trucks a day will be bringing toxic chemicals to the facility to be burned or toxic ash to be taken to a landfill. Just one spill could have a disastrous impact on the neighborhood and water resources in the area. The Philadelphia Water Co. has said any spill would be “catastrophic.”

“We would be gambling with the thousands of trucks, close to 7,500 a year, going in and out of the facility each year. They would be carrying millions of gallons of toxic waste into the facility and then carrying toxic sludge out of it along our roads and putting our citizens in danger if they overturn or leak. The transportation and storage issues alone should be enough to deny this project,” said Tittel.

Elcon’s Air Quality Plan Approval Application filed in October 2018 has been deemed administratively complete and is under technical review. Toxic ash and dangerous particles from the thousands of pounds of waste to be burned every day at this facility would threaten communities’ air quality and public health.

“Prevailing winds would send toxic chemicals through the air into New Jersey, having a bigger impact to our air than in Pennsylvania. The waste from this facility will end up as vapor that we breathe in. When you burn hazardous waste like nail polish removers, pesticides and other toxic chemicals, you don’t get rid of it. Instead it is just changing forms releasing pollution and some toxins into the air polluting our environment. This region already has some of the worst air quality in the nation being ranked in the top 20 worst areas. Now air quality could get even worse with a giant smokestack belching toxins into the air,” said Tittel.

A General Stormwater Discharge Permit application is also considered administratively complete and now under technical review. The facility directly threatens three different water supply intakes: Trenton, Delran, and Philadelphia.

“Spills and leaks coming off the site will end up in the river. The water supply intakes in both Trenton and Delran would be impacted, threatening the water supply for millions of people in the region,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Our rivers belong to all of us. Across the country we are opening up our riverfronts for people and instead this toxic incinerator could push away not only people, but residential and commercial development. This project is dangerous to our environment and communities; it must be stopped.”