Sludge Drying Plant Protest

Join Us May 3 to Protest the Proposed Sewage Sludge Drying Plant!

When:
5:30 pm, Thursday, May 3
Where:
Outside Waste Management’s Information Meeting
Weona Park
1026 Blue Valley Dr.
Pen Argyl, PA 18072

Waste Management Inc. and Synagro Technologies, a “bio solids” processing company, wants to build an enormous thermal drying facility to process sewage at the Grand Central Landfill on the border of Pen Argyl and Plainfield Township, PA, near homes and businesses, children’s athletic fields, and two high quality streams.  They would truck in up to 400 wet tons per day of human sewage waste from states throughout the region to produce dried sludge pellets, a “biosolids” product sold as fertilizer and heat pellets. 

Residents of the area are opposed to the facility because of air and water pollution concerns, public health effects, safety issues and property value decline. Sludge from sewage treatment plants not only contains human pathogens, pharmaceuticals, hormones, and organics founds in human feces but can also contain industrial waste components such as heavy metals, chemicals, radioactive materials, pesticides, microplastics and perfluorinated compounds, to name a few typically found.  The process of drying sludge produces dust that, if not fully contained, can directly impact the health of local residents and workers. 

Toxic dust emitted by a sludge drying plant can contain many pollutants that bind to small particles, very difficult to contain even with filters. Studies have revealed illnesses and death in residents living nearby including respiratory problems and eye, nose, throat and skin irritation, gastrointestinal and Staphylococcus aureus infections, and adverse health effects from exposure to industrial chemicals, endotoxins, pathogens concentrated into the dust by the drying process, heat-resistant viruses, and bacteria.

Please join us to stop this travesty that endangers the health and safety of the residents of this region, threatening toxic dust and groundwater and surface water pollution.

For more information: tracy@delawareriverkeeper.org and
Sludge Free Slate Belt: https://www.facebook.com/sludgefreeslatebelt/