Fulkroad Landfill

Headline: Public hearing set on disposal of trash
Publication Date: June 28, 1990
Source: The Harrisburg Patriot
Page: B2
Subjects: WASTE
Region: Pennsylvania

Dauphin County residents will have a chance to comment on how their trash will be handled for the next 10 years, at a public hearing in September.

County commissioners yesterday set Sept. 6 at the Dauphin County Agricultural and Natural Resources Center in Dauphin borough as the date and place residents can voice opinions on the municipal solid-waste plan.

The main parts of the plan include the already-approved agreements for the Fulkroad and Modern landfills to handle all the county's trash except waste generated by Harrisburg, Swatara Twp. and Highspire, all of which have separate arrangements.

In the plan, Fulkroad will handle 70 percent of the county's waste, and Modern Landfill, owned by Waste Management Inc. and located near York, will handle 30 percent of the trash. Harrisburg will use its incinerator; Swatara and Highspire have agreements to use York County's incinerator. Because state guidelines require the county to manage all its own trash, the three municipalities will still be asked to approve the plan, and the county will be responsible for the trash if their disposal options fall through.

Trash hauler Chambers Development Corp. is still before the state Department of Environmental Resources, trying to get a permit to reopen Fulkroad, which was closed by DER after it exceeded its capacity. However, county officials say since the contract with Chambers specifies the company must find a site for the county's trash at the agreed-upon prices regardless of whether the landfill is reopened, the county is protected.

Headline: County dangles offer to lower fee for municipalities' trash disposal
Publication Date: February 08, 1991
Source: The Harrisburg Patriot
Page: B2
Subjects: WASTE
Region: Pennsylvania

As Dauphin County municipalities continue debating whether to approve the county's solid-waste plan covering the next 10 years, a little sweetener has been added to the proposal.
The estimated $7.90 administrative fee tacked onto each ton of disposed garbage could be reduced by as much as $3.15, making the plan that already includes the least expensive dumping fees in the surrounding area an even better deal, county officials said yesterday.

And county officials who say they still plan a written response to criticism of the plan circulated last week by Harrisburg say there are controls to ensure municipalities won't be signing a "blank check" by approving the document.
"The fee was made conservatively high to start with," said David E. Ball, executive director of the county's Intermunicipal Solid Waste Authority. Lowering the proposed fee was also a directive given by the Republican majority commissioners when they approved the plan.

Ball said new calculations set the fee between $4.75 and $5.25 a ton. The authority originally had used high estimates in planning the financing of its $2.9 million debt, making the fee appear higher at first.
In planning the authority's $600,000-a-year operating budget, Ball said a conservative approach didn't include state Department of Environmental Resources grants that may be received. About $100,000 a year could be received from sources other than the fee.

Those grants shouldn't be affected by state cutbacks, Ball added, since the $3.25 a ton tax DER adds on disposed waste is the source of the grant money.

In recalculating the fee, an estimate of 146,500 tons of garbage a year was still used, though Ball said the actual amount would most likely come to at least 150,000 tons a year by July 1993, when the fee will kick in and when all the municipalities should start following the plan.

The newly calculated fee must still be presented to the solid waste board, which plans to meet Feb. 19. At that meeting the authority also is expected to decide on whether to build a transfer station to collect garbage from the lower end of the county and truck it to the Fulkroad Landfill in the northern part of the county.

Ball said most likely the transfer station will be approved, which will reduce transportation costs and traffic from around 30 trucks to as low as 15 a day. Under the plan, Fulkroad, owned by Chambers Development, will get 70 percent of the county's waste. Waste Management's Modern Landfill in York would get the remainder.

Ball said county commissioners would have to approve any increase in the fee greater than 5 percent a year or any financing arrangement for more than $1 million, according to the plan.

To pass, the plan must be approved by at least 50 percent of the municipal governments representing more than half of the county's population. So far, the plan has been approved by Hummelstown, Berrysburg, Steelton, Lykens, Williamstown, Swatara Twp., Williams Twp., Washington Twp., and Wiconisco Twp.

Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed maintained the waste plan will not save residents money in the long run. He says his criticism of the plan is not because the authority did not include the city's incinerator as a disposal option.
County officials have said the city did not make a good proposal, failed to provide back-up sites and was a more expensive option than the landfills.

Headline: Trash station included in waste plan
Publication Date: February 21, 1991
Source: The Harrisburg Patriot
Page: B2
Subjects: WASTE
Region: Pennsylvania

A trash-transfer station will be part of Dauphin County's proposed 10-year municipal solid-waste plan, the county commissioners decided by a 2-1 vote last night.

At their monthly "on-the-road meeting" at the Jefferson Twp. municipal building, commissioners also approved reducing the estimated $7.90 per ton administrative fee for handling trash to a "not-to-exceed" fee of $5 per ton.

Both actions were recommended by the county solid-waste authority at a meeting Tuesday night.

Lowering the fee, which will fund the authority's operations and be charged starting in 1993, and the building a transfer station had been called for by various municipal officials.

Authority officials said the administrative fee was set conservatively high. Reducing the fee is possible by cutting the authority's annual operating expenses by $100,000 to $500,000 and by entering into long-term financing, with county assistance, to pay off approximately $2.5 million in debt incurred by the authority in developing the plan. State grants also are being counted on to help trim expenses, officials said.

Under the proposed plan, the administrative fee cannot be raised more than 5 percent a year without the commissioners' approval.

Proponents of a transfer station say it would reduce transportation costs and truck traffic because trash haulers could use larger trucks in going from the southern part of the county to the Fulkroad Landfill over Peters Mountain.
Democratic minority Commissioner Carol A. Peters, who is opposed to the plan because it calls for 70 percent of the county's waste to go to Fulkroad, voted no on both items approved last night.

Peters said she opposes the transfer station because too many unanswered questions could mean higher costs for municipalities. Regarding the administrative fee, she said guarantees are insufficient to ensure municipalities that it would not be increased.

"I still have many concerns about the cost and the plan for the transfer station," Peters said. "It is far from being concrete."
Under the solid-waste plan, which would serve as a guide for disposal of trash generated in the county for the next 10 years, 30 percent of the trash would go to Waste Management's Modern Landfill in York County.

The plan has been approved by the county commissioners and is before the municipalities for ratification before going to the state Department of Environmental Resources for final approval. The plan must be endorsed by March 13 by at least half of the county's 40 municipalities, and those municipalities must represent at least half of the county population.

Twelve municipalities have ratified the plan to date, officials said, and three Harrisburg, Conewago Twp. and Paxtang have voted against it.

Commissioners and the solid-waste authority have agreed on the need for a trash-transfer station, but officials said decisions on location, who will own and operate it and financing have yet to be made.

According to a timetable prepared by the authority, those decisions should be made by June. Under the timetable, a transfer station, which probably would include a recycling center, should be up and running by about November 1992.

Chambers Development, the company that owns Fulkroad Landfill, is seeking to build such a facility in Swatara Twp., and township officials have said they see no problems with that plan.

The Republican majority commissioners said their action shows the county is responsive to the concerns of municipalities.
"Quite frankly, I'm very pleased that the requests of this board were considered by the {solid-waste} authority and fall in line with the requests of the upper Dauphin community," said Commissioner Russell L. Sheaffer.

In related action, the commissioners appointed Charles Phillips of Pillow to sit on the authority, replacing former Chairman Ted Keck III, who resigned last August.

Headline: Peters to protest expansion of landfill site
Publication Date: September 28, 1991
Source: The Harrisburg Patriot
Page: A4
Subjects: WASTE
Region: Pennsylvania

Dauphin County minority Commissioner Carol A. Peters said yesterday she is sending a letter to the state Department of Environmental Resources opposing expansion of the former Fulkroad Landfill, and she dared the majority Republican commissioners to join her.

She also criticized Rep. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Susquehanna, for his attack of her position on the landfill, now called Dauphin Meadows, which takes 70 percent of the county's garbage under its municipal waste plan.

Piccola had called Peters a hypocrite for opposing the Chambers application to expand the facility, saying she had failed to speak out when the proposal originally was made.

Peters, however, said she has spoken out against the landfill from the start, and was the only commissioner to vote against the county's 10-year waste plan because it calls for use of the landfill.

Headline: Ex-landfill owner charged with dumping illegally
Publication Date: August 20, 1993
Source: The Harrisburg Patriot
Page: B2
Subjects: COURT
Region: Pennsylvania

James E. Fulkroad, 56, of rural Millersburg was arraigned before Elizabethville District Justice Edward R. Williams on a misdemeanor violation of the Solid Waste Management Act, according to Attorney General Ernie Preate Jr.

Fulkroad operated James Fulkroad Disposal, a waste collection and disposal business, from his Upper Paxton Twp. home from 1989 to 1991, according to a complaint filed by Preate's Environmental Crimes Section.

Investigators said Fulkroad disposed of some of the municipal trash he collected at the Harrisburg Steam Generating Facility.

The charges allege that Fulkroad also illegally dumped trash in a one-acre pit, 10 to 12 feet deep, that he dug on his property.

The investigation began when the Department of Environmental Resources received an anonymous tip about the dumping, Preate said. DER referred the case to the attorney general's office.

Following arraignment, Fulkroad waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on his own recognizance.

Deputy Attorney General Mark A. Bellavia, chief of the Environmental Crimes Section, said the charge against Fulkroad carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a $25,000 fine.

Fulkroad and his brother had owned and operated the former Fulkroad Landfill, now called Dauphin Meadows, before Chambers Development Corp. bought the business in 1986, according to Preate's office.

The landfill had been closed by DER because it was full. Chambers then constructed a new double-lined, covered landfill on the same property. That landfill opened in May 1991.

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