D&L Trail Nonprofit Opposes Bethlehem Landfill Expansion

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.