In a rural pocket of western Pennsylvania, along the leafy banks of Sewickley Creek, a small, jagged pipe juts just above the waterline, its cement casing carpeted in moss.
The pipe releases treated wastewater into the creek—a popular spot for kayaking and fishing—from a landfill that handles some of the state’s most toxic industrial waste, including from oil and gas drilling.Two new signs on the opposite shore correct the impression of a forgotten relic. “Warning! Hazardous Waste Discharge Point,” they read. “Arsenic, lead, cyanide, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and more are permitted substances for discharge at this site.”
The Max Environmental Technologies landfill has been out of compliance with requirements set under the Clean Water Act for most of the past three years and with the federal hazardous waste law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, known as RCRA for short, since July 2023.
For decades, residents have raised the alarm about the 160-acre landfill’s impact on the town, blaming its operations for serious harms to their health, their children, their animals, their waterways and their land.
They say exposure to pollution from the landfill has led to more cancers, miscarriages, respiratory distress and neurological diseases. Over three generations, since the landfill’s opening in 1964, they’ve endured odors, dust, noise and spills. They’ve watched their neighbors fall ill, die or move out, and they live in fear for their own health. More of this article (Inside Climate News) - link - BANANA - link - more like this (Pennsylvania) - link - more like this (landfill) - link
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