October 14, 2005
by Jaime Bumbarger
Mo Valley Bureau Chief
Reproduced with permission.

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PHILIPSBURG -- Amid what may have been the most emotion yet at a Rush Township Board of Supervisors meeting, supervisors last night approved amending its host municipality agreement with a landfill developer, clearing the way for use of local roadways to access the proposed site.

Supervisors were met with jeers as they unanimously voted in favor of the changes. After the vote as the standing-room only crowd shuffled out the door, a handful of people remained in the meeting room to get a few last comments across to supervisors.

One woman whose son and daughter-in-law recently built a home near the proposed landfill site pounded her hand on the table and through tears begged supervisors to consider her children and grandchildren. Another woman pointed her finger within inches of the face of supervisor Joan Cowher, while others told supervisors they would pay for their sins. The escalation of emotions ended quickly once the township's solicitor threatened to contact the state police, but not before the township secretary walked out, saying she felt unsafe.

Supervisors said they understood the emotion but said the personal attacks were unnecessary.

Those in attendance, however, said the supervisors lacked compassion, particularly towards their neighbors. Residents from neighboring Cooper and Snow Shoe townships attended the meeting and reiterated that they would be the ones most impacted by the landfill and its associated traffic. Sharon Josefik of the Cooper Township Planning Commission said the commission joined Cooper supervisors in opposing the proposal. "You have no right to impose this dump or traffic on Cooper Township," she said.

Dan and Debbie Mottin of Moshannon walked out prior to the vote. As he was leaving, Mr. Mottin, a Philipsburg-Osceola Area High School alumnus, said he lost all respect for educator, Jack Shannon, chairman of the board of supervisors.

"You're not God," several residents shouted. "You've been raped," Brenda Weaver of Beech Creek said of the township's host municipality agreement. "The first piece of trash in that landfill should be that host municipality agreement."

But the opposition was not limited to residents of neighboring municipalities. Mike Savage of Rush said supervisors need to be sensitive to those around them. "Don't we want to be good neighbors?" he asked.

Jenn Shufran of Rush urged supervisors to take advantage of a second chance they received. "This is a window to get out of this, and the public would like you to go out that window," she said.

But supervisors insisted opposition to the proposal was not as widespread as perceived, despite Terri Burbidge of Moshannon presenting supervisors with a petition signed by 2,200 people opposed to the landfill and an impromptu hand vote by residents showed all but one opposed to it.

In a scene reminiscent of last year when representatives of the Centre County Planning Office pleaded with supervisors to hold off signing the host municipality agreement with Resource Recovery LLC, Chris Price, assistant planner, made a similar request for a short delay before supervisors acted on the amendment. Mr. Price said the delay would allow him to continue working with Snow Shoe Township officials in reaching a compromise, but like last year, the vote moved forward. Mr. Shannon said the action will have little impact on those talks and said the 30-day self-imposed moratorium on taking any action on amending the agreement has passed with no movement.

"We've been very patient," said Supervisor Patrick Couturiaux, who opposed the motion last month to wait 30-days before taking any action.

The decision to move forward with the vote on amending the host municipality agreement was not an easy one, but was necessary in order for the project to move forward, supervisors said.

"We're not giving permission to put the landfill in," said Ms. Cowher. "We're simply giving them access to their land."

Without that access, Mr. Shannon said Resource Recovery LLC, the Lancaster-based developer, was at a standstill. "The reason for the interchange in the first place was to look kindly on neighboring areas," he said. "But other powers said no."

Those powers, the Centre County Board of Commissioners and the Centre County Planning Commission and Metropolitan Planning Organization found the proposed privately funded interchange off Interstate 80 between the existing Kylertown and Snow Shoe exits inconsistent with the county's long-range goals.

Now that it has access to the property, RRLLC can begin preparing its permit application to the state Department of Environmental Protection. According to Mr. Shannon, RRLLC is expected to make application to DEP early next year.

Last night's amendment removed a paragraph from the host municipality agreement that required all waste haulers, except those specifically designated by Snow Shoe Township, to use Interstate 80 as the ingress and egress route to the landfill. It was replaced with language that RRLLC "will make reasonable efforts to obtain approval of, and to construct at its expense, a new interchange to Route I-80 to connect to Gorton Road." This interchange will be used to access the site once constructed, but until that point, it can utilize the state roadway network as an interim means to access the landfill and waste processing portions of the project. The industrial park may not be constructed until the interchange is built.

When asked if he felt supervisors backpedaled on a promise of "no interchange, no landfill," Mr. Shannon said all projects, regardless of what they are, contain change orders. "Change occurs for the betterment of the project," he said, pointing out the amount of trash that can be hauled into the site was also amended. Until a new interchange is constructed, waste delivery via state Route 53 and 144 should not exceed 4,500 tons per day, half of what the agreement permits once the interchange is constructed.

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