From a press release I received today:
Peoria Families Against Toxic Waste
(309) 339-9733
www.notoxicwaste.orgJanuary 22, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
Please announce the following:
PEORIA DISPOSAL COMPANY HOLDING PUBLIC MEETING ON EXPANDING LANDFILL WITHOUT COUNTY APPROVAL — FRIDAY, JANUARY 26 AT 9AM!
PEORIA FAMILIES AGAINST TOXIC WASTE AND HEART OF ILLINOIS SIERRA CLUB ENCOURAGE EVERYONE CONCERNED TO ATTEND!
Peoria Disposal Company (PDC), owner/operator of the hazardous waste landfill located at 4349 Southport Rd in Peoria, just west of Pleasant Valley Middle School and the Sterling Avenue business corridor, is holding a legally required public meeting on Friday, January 26 at 9am, as part of their application to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) for a Class 3 permit modification. PDC is claiming they are a manufacturer of the waste, because they mix inert substances with some of the hazardous waste, in an attempt to circumvent state law requiring local governmental approval of an expansion.
Peoria Families Against Toxic Waste (PFATW) and Heart of Illinois Sierra Club (HOISC) will be in attendance. We strongly encourage all citizens of Peoria County to attend as well. Come and learn about PDC’s maneuver to bypass the County Board’s decisive “no” vote. Public questions about the PDC Class 3 permit modification will be allowed at the meeting:
Friday, January 26, 2007
9:00am
PDC Laboratory
2231 W. Altorfer Drive, PeoriaWe encourage concerned citizens to go to www.notoxicwaste.org for more information and directions.
Additional information:
PDC is asking the Illinois EPA to reclassify their hazardous waste landfill as a generator of waste rather than a regional pollution control facility, so they won’t need county approval to dump millions more tons of hazardous waste over our water source and upwind of Peoria. In fact, the EXACT same engineering drawings and plans put before the County in the expansion application have been submitted to IEPA for this Permit modification request. Peoria Disposal Company spent over $1,000,000 trying to convince the Peoria County Board to allow them to expand their hazardous waste site, but the County voted no based on the evidence. Now PDC is trying to claim they don’t need the county’s approval anyway. “It’s our backup plan,” said PDC attorney Brian Meginnes in a recent Peoria Journal Star article.Other issues:
PFATW and HOISC are watchful of the four fronts PDC is pursuing with their hazardous waste landfill, including the appeal to the Illinois Pollution Control Board regarding the County Board’s denial of the PDC expansion request, and PDC’s recent application to the US EPA to take in increased levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), despite having said during the 2006 hearings that this was not their intention. PCBs are known carcinogens banned from production by the US Congress in 1977.PDC has also applied to the Illinois EPA for a renewal of their operating permit, a renewal that includes two new 32,000 gallon steel silos and a new solids building with 9 underground holding tanks of 20,000 gallons each for their waste processing.
See our website, www.notoxicwaste.org, for our “Four Fronts” chart with more information on PDC’s latest activities.
Background on our group
PFATW is an ever-growing group of mainstream citizens who live and work in Peoria County and are concerned about the health and safety of our families. Like many other local grassroots organizations, the medical community and thousands of Peoria County citizens who voiced their strong concerns during the 2006 expansion hearings, we oppose Peoria Disposal Company’s (PDC) proposed expansion of its hazardous waste landfill so close to our homes as well as the new threat of toxic PCBs. We are compelled and unified by a common sense concern about the health and safety of our children. We seek to do what we see as our duty as concerned residents: to inform our neighbors and impact the public process.
We believe the long term negative affects of continued hazardous waste dumping right on the edge of our city are unknown and not worth the risk to our families’ health and investment in our good communities. Additionally, safety claims are unproven. Long-term benefits to our community are very low to non-existent. For these reasons we oppose the expansion and acceptance of PCBs.
We are citizens, taxpayers, parents and grandparents and we seek to protect our health and the health of our children.
Please go to www.notoxicwaste.org for more information.
It wasn’t that many years ago, when a business that generated such wastes in their normal operations, would not know what to do with it and simply dump it on their own property, causing what is now called “brownfields”. The EPA is now paying for (us taxpayers) the removal of this stuff. There are such sites in the Peoria area. I would rather have a highly regulated industry take care of it properly than go back to where we used to be. It HAS TO go somewhere.
Sure, it has to go somewhere. But does it HAVE TO go into our back yard? about 300 feet away from people’s houses? And on top of Central Illinois’ main water source?