Public Urged to Attend Meeting of the Ulysses Township Supervisors

A recently organized advocacy group, the Triple Divide Caretakers, urges the
public to attend the next scheduled Ulysses Township Supervisors’ meeting on
February 13th at 6:30 PM. The Caretakers group hopes to discuss the proposed
Headwaters Water Reclamation, LLC, wastewater treatment facility with the
supervisors. The Ulysses Township Planning Commission has already approved
the project, and the township supervisors will likely be voting on it at the meeting
next week, which will be held in the large meeting room of the Potter County
Solid Waste Authority Building on Rte 49 just north of Gold.

A fracking waste facility has recently been permitted by DEP to be constructed one mile south of this sign. © J.B.Pribanic

There are various concerns that should be discussed in a public forum. Shale
gas waste is known to be radioactive, and the company proposing this facility is
using technology that so far does not seem to be independently tested. While the
recycling of shale gas waste water is important, this particular industrial waste
facility will be built within an Exceptional Value watershed at the headwaters
of Luddington Run, a tributary of the Genesee River, in an agricultural and
residential area, not an industrial one.

Currently, there is little drilling activity in Potter County, so why here? Why
now? Will the county be receiving waste from other counties and states?

Pictured are the headwaters of Ludington Run (an EV watershed), and an open field where DEP has agreed to place a fracking waste facility. © J.B.Pribanic for more photos see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29184238@N06/sets/72157632695664572/

HWR, LLC, is a subsidiary of REVH2O, LLC, a company that also distributes an
on-site, mobile treatment system, Sionix, which states on its own website, “Costly
and risky transportation of these highly toxic wastes no longer need(s) to cross
the busy highways and byways of rural America threatening told and untold
catastrophes.” http://www.sionix.com/applications/oil-gas

In December 2012, the area of Potter County where the proposed facility will
be built was designated by PA DEP and the EPA as an Environmental Justice Zone,
which requires that the public be a part of the planning and development of
waste facilities. However, according to Pat Brennan, Program Manager of DEP’s
Waste Management Division office in Williamsport, the registration for a General
Permit was received from Headwaters Reclamation, LLC, in the summer of 2012,
well before the Environmental Justice designation was announced in December.

After the General Permit has been issued, DEP is not required to hold a public
hearing or meeting and declines now to do so.

Apparently, the supervisors’ meeting will be the only chance for the citizens
of Ulysses Township and the rest of Potter County to voice their concerns and
ask questions about the facility before a decision-making body. Triple Divide
Caretakers hope that a civil and informed discussion will benefit the county
and those most directly impacted in the Ulysses area. The public has learned
about this project from reports in the local papers, but, until now, hasn’t
been invited to the discussion. Please attend. For more information, go to
http://www.tripledividecaretakers.org.

Pictured is a blueprint of the frack waste treatment plant scheduled for Ulysses Township, PA., at the headwaters of the Genesee River near Ludington Run.