A tense meeting in Mount Joy Township turned volatile Monday after one resident threw his agenda at supervisors and a police officer was summoned to keep order.
Residents gathered in force to oppose a new host agreement, which deals with issues relating to zoning and traffic, between the township and Veolia Environmental Services, which wants to expand its landfill operation.
The state Department of Environmental Protection will decide whether Veolia ES can increase the capacity of its landfill. The township has only limited authority related to issues of zoning and traffic.
Monday's discussion turned heated after resident Kate Thome, of 2284 Cloverleaf Road, asked supervisors whether the host agreement under discussion was "already a done deal."
Board chairman Blaine E. Miller hesitated, then nodded. "As far as I know, it is," he said.
"Then why are we here? And why weren't we part of the process?" Thome asked.
Outbursts of complaint followed from members of the audience, many of whom were wearing bright-red T-shirts with the slogan "Close Mt. Joy Township Landfill. Preserve Our Health, Water & Air" emblazoned on the chest.
One man threw his agenda and a copy of the host agreement in the direction of the supervisors before storming from the room, after which supervisor Charles W. Ricedorf summoned a police officer to stand watch for the rest of the meeting.
The meeting was tense from the beginning, when Miller announced a 30-minute cap on public comments. When one resident complained, Miller said, "We'll have no public comment if that keeps going."
The board ignored a request from resident Thomas McKinne, 2366 Valley View Road, to delay a decision until supervisor Gerald Cole could be present. Cole, McKinne said, has been working with residents on their concerns and should be there for the decision.
John Wolf, of 60 Quarry Road, repeated McKinne's request, saying the host agreement was posted on the township Web site late Friday, giving residents little time to digest its contents. McKinne said residents tried to get involved and were working with Cole on the issue.
"We talked about an escrow account. We talked about all kinds of other issues, and not one of them showed up in this contract," he said. "It's frustrating. We do want to be involved. But we did take to the time to get involved, and we got shut out."
He said the 12-year host agreement is too long.
"You're tying the hands of whoever's going to be sitting in those chairs six years from now, eight years from now, 10 years from now," he said.
Township solicitor Josele Cleary, who assisted supervisors in preparing the agreement, said the new pact with Veolia "retains many of the provisions of the existing agreement. It also makes some changes and clarifications."
For instance, she said, the agreement specifies the hours of operation of the landfill (6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, with the exception of emergencies or other operations that receive prior township approval). The contract allows township representatives to inspect the site without warning and sets financial penalties for violations to the pact.
Veolia ES general manager Michael Carlini, in a letter prepared in advance of Monday's meeting and distributed after the four supervisor's present voted unanimously to approve the agreement, said he is pleased by the vote, which "represents true cooperation."
In the letter, Carlini notes that the company is increasing its tipping fee for construction and demolition debris from $1 per ton to $1.30 per ton, increasing the value of a road reconstruction bond from $100,000 to $500,000, increasing supervision and enforcement of road cleanup and agreeing to pay 80 percent of the cost to mill and resurface Cloverleaf Road when the landfill eventually closes.
Lowell Graybill, 970 Milton Grove Road South, said it's "insanity that we're rushing ahead with a revised host agreement" when there's no deadline for action. The state won't decide whether to approve expansion of the site for 18 months, he said.
And Claire Bender, 2444 Cloverleaf Road, said she is worried the contract does little to secure water quality for residents whose wells could be affected by seepage from the site. "There's really nothing there that's protecting the neighborhood," she said. "We really need to be better stewards of the land."
Ricedorf conceded that the township hasn't enforced some mandates of the original agreement as strictly as it should have. "Would I want to live out there? No. Do I like that landfill out there? No," he said. "We could vote no on this thing, and you people might walk out of here thinking you're happy. ... But I do not want to continue moving down the road without a host agreement in place. We went for the best deal."
E-mail; tknapp@lnpnews.com