DEP official has fill concerns

WILKES-BARRE – A state Department of Environmental Protection supervisor has alleged the company developing mine-scarred land in Hazleton is in violation of its latest permit, and he has asked that he and his staff be recused from inspections and investigations of Hazleton Creek Properties LLC.

Chuck Rogers, solid waste supervisor of the department’s Northeast Regional Office, submitted a formal request for recusal on March 24, less than two weeks after the department’s main office in Harrisburg issued the company a permit to experiment with a mix of materials to fill a 60-acre portion of the more than 200-acre site.

Mark Carmon, spokesman for the regional office, said it was “Chuck’s privilege to ask that.”

The office will handle inspections and investigations of the new permit to mix construction and demolition debris with dredged river sediment, Carmon said.

To date, however, the company has not brought any of the new permitted materials on site and must notify the department in advance. When it does, the department will act on Rogers’s request, said Carmon. “We’re holding tight until we get anything from Hazleton Creek Properties.”

John Repetz, a department spokesman in Harrisburg, said the permit was issued out of the central office because it handles research and development applications statewide. Two other permits were issued out of the regional office.

Hazleton Creek Properties received its third permit on March 12 in what the department labeled a demonstration project to use the mixture to fill the area known as the Mammoth Pit.

In the internal memo obtained by The Times Leader, Rogers raised the issue that the regional office was not involved with the permit, “leaving staff with a very incomplete picture of HCP’s proposal and goals as they relate to operating conditions.”

He also expressed concerns with the company’s permit, alleging it does not appear to be intended for Hazleton Creek Properties’ proposed activities.

He wrote, “How can a reasonable DEP inspector not place HCP in violation of Permit Condition #16 which states: ‘The activities authorized by this permit shall not harm or present a threat of harm to the health, safety or welfare of the people or environment of this Commonwealth.’”

“There is abundant scientific data already available that provides evidence of environmental degradation and harm when solid waste is disposed of as proposed by HCP,” he concluded.

One of the opponents of the use of the mixed material, state Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Butler Township, said the permit turned southern Hazleton into a “science experiment” and the department overlooked the health concerns of area residents by issuing it to Hazleton Creek Properties.

The company has been using river sediment and construction and demolition debris as fill to reclaim the property for the site of a 20,000- to 30,000-seat outdoor amphitheater and a commercial/business park.

A contract awarded in 2006 to dispose of the sediment taken from the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers in Philadelphia drew attention from federal authorities last week.

They seized records from Fort Mifflin Reclamation Associates Inc., whose offices are in the same Kingston building as Hazleton Creek Properties. The companies also have common principals, Marvin Slomowitz and William F. Rinaldi.