Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L) is a the nonprofit that helps manage the 165-mile transportation route between Wilkes-Barre and Bristol, Pennsylvania. Canal boats that once brought King Coal have been mostly replaced by tourists, cyclists, hikers, campers and fishermen. As you might have guessed, hiking through a landfill is hardly any way to take advantage of our recreational resources.
Brit Kondravy, Conservation Coordinator at D&L, has provided this statement to Lower Saucon Tp Council after it approved zoning changes that will permit the landfill to double its size:
The DLNHC was designated by United States Congress in 1988 under President Reagan to preserve, protect, and celebrate the nationally-significant industrial heritage of our five-county region (Bucks, Northampton, Lehigh, Carbon, and Luzerne). This is our 35th year of making connections focused around our four pillars of the mission: industrial heritage, nature and environment, health and wellness, and economic development. We believe considering either of these parcels for landfill expansion in any capacity is a mistake for the whole region and generations to come.
We specifically feel this would go against each pillar of our mission for the following reasons:
Industrial Heritage – the Redington Historic District within this land area supported the work force of Coleraine Furnace in the 1800s before Bethlehem Steel used it as an armaments testing area and shell-filling plant through World War 1 and had rail lines servicing the area – all related to the strong industrial heritage of the region 2) this land is within the viewshed of the D&L Trail built along the former Lehigh Navigation towpath following the historic path of canals and railroads from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol.
Nature and Environment – clearing the steep wooded slopes leading to the Lehigh River would be detrimental to the entire watershed and the river corridor that many generations have worked hard to clean up since our society degraded it with the prior industries – we must learn from our mistakes and be sure to balance the environmental and economic benefits; these parcels make one of the largest contiguous wooded areas adjacent to the entire Lehigh River and we cannot get something like that back.
Health and Wellness – yes, we all need places to put trash (and we should be doing more to limit our trash production) but the recreation benefits of getting in nature, the air quality and water quality are all critical to maintaining the health of our population. expanding this landfill that takes on its majority of trash from out of state and taking over such a critical area of open space is detrimental to our community.
Economic Development – The D&L Trail is well on its way to being the longest multi-use trail in Pennsylvania, longer than the Great Allegheny Passage, and bring in tremendous ecomonic growth for small businesses, hospitality, outfitters, and retail. You are discussing clearing wooded area within the viewshed of the trail as it goes through Bethlehem and Freemansburg and expanding a landfill. What will that do for encouraging cyclists to take three day trips along the D&L Trail?
There are always other ways to balance budgets but there’s not always a way to get back heritage and environmental resources.
11 comments:
Totally off topic, but you're the guy who could get to the bottom of this. Have you noticed how many departures from the Tuerk administration recently? It seems, on a number of fronts, to be complete chaos. Allentonians would be grateful for your take on it.
And have you heard any more on the No Confidence vote you had mention before?
Yea this is a done deal, no matter how many people bitch & moan. Should have spoke up 40 years ago. ..
Breaking a dump money addiction is harder than kicking heroin.
Having read the D&L rep statement, his arguments regarding the impact on the D&L corridor seem like a bit of a reach. My guess is that visitors to the corridor and users of the trail wouldn't even know or care that there was an expanded landfill in the vicinity. Having biked the D&L trail from Bethlehem to Easton several times, its so isolated and quiet down there, I-78 and Route 33 noise can't even be heard.
The economic benefits of corridor and trail visitation is probably much less than stated and I'd bet the expanded landfill has a greater economic benefit. I guess as someone who generates solid wastes, I'm feeling a little less sanctimonious about the expansion than the D&L spokesperson. Since there is virtually no local news reporting in Allentown at this point, I too would be interested to know about the administrative departures and the "complete chaos" at City Hall.
Shouldn't we question why we produce so much waste? I don't see anyone on the opposition talking about how they have reduced their wastestream. We're all contributors with no solutions.
So after any leverage to get a corporate donation from the landfill operators the guy has objections?
Where was he before the vote?
So many “historical should have done…warriors.” Hindsight is always 20/20, so buck up and fight. Why are you waiting for *more* of a problem?! Make history and fight for what is right! This region has spent decades cleaning up industrialism to make it something positive to encourage economic growth. There other dozens of ways to replace the economic factors of a landfill. The ramifications of expanding a landfill are only for those bought by corporate greed. No one who truly understands the impact would ever support this. WHO WANTS TO BE KNOWN FOR A TOXIC LANDFILL?
Lighten up, cupcake. 🧁
If you dislike landfill expansion do not create as much garbage. The average person can't even separate their waste into proper containers. And they even dummied it down from years ago when paper was separated from other waste. And it you believe a lot of these collections are actually being recycled you are mistaken. Waste Management in the Slate Belt has been making a good effort to plant over landfill areas and offer to the public opportunities to see wildlife such as birds and butterflies. Even our poor have much more "stuff' than most of the world. Lots of food gets thrown out in most of our homes. If you want to see waste, check out the cafeteria waste cans in even the schools in economically deprived areas. yes, some places try to compost but why is it thrown in there anyway? We have met the problem and it is us.
The USA creates more trash on a daily basis than it creates in tangible useful products and consumer goods
Sad!
Jimmy Hoffa?
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