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Our toxic neighbor?
Puppy love
Bordentown would be downwind from proposed hazardous waste plant By roB antheS
Alexander and Sawyer Fuzy pet therapy dog Casey at the Bordentown Residents Against Drugs Town Hall event April 16, 2019 at the Carslake Community Center. For more photos, turn to Page 18. (Photo by Suzette J. Lucas.)
First-time children’s book author turns struggles into hope By micheLe aLPerin Any divorce brings with it serious life changes, especially for a woman with two elementary school children. But for Amanda Rowe, it also meant carving away time to do more writing. Rowe’s newest children’s book, If There Never Was a You, was recently published. Although she continued her writing practice when her children were younger—producing three unpublished novels, personal essays, health and nutri-
tion articles, greeting cards and poems—two years ago, right after she moved to Bordentown, she found herself with more alone time. Her 14-year-old son and almost-16-year-old daughter were busy with friends and sports, or they were away at the home of her ex-husband, and she began to get an “empty nest feeling.” Now that she had a little more free time (as much as is possible with a full-time job as administrator of the graduate program in Princeton Universi-
ty’s sociology department), she says, “I started to think, ‘How can I be productive with this time?’” Musing about the enjoyment she had had from her children when they were small, she says, “I started thinking about how my life would have been different if they had never been born.” These thoughts congealed into a poem that captured her love of the small things they had brought into her life. See ROWE, Page 14
The next few weeks mark a crucial juncture for a proposed toxic waste treatment plant in Bucks County that environmentalists say would pollute the air and potentially the drinking water of nearby New Jersey towns. Israel-based Elcon Recycling Services has plans to build a facility in Falls Township that would store and treat nearly 200,000 tons per year of hazardous and residual waste. This includes mercury, lead, cadmium, benzine, vinyl chloride and 260 other chemicals. Elcon says the facility is safe and “eco-friendly,” and has touted the 150 temporary construction jobs and 55 full-time jobs that would be created by the facility. But nearby residents say the loss of a few dozen jobs is a small price to pay to ensure the health and safety of the region. Many of them speak from experience, and worry that the same towns that woke up covered with red dust from the Fairless Works steel mill in the mid-20th century would be in the path of pollution from Elcon’s stack. If built, the plant would be near the Delaware River, directly across from Hamilton Township and upwind from Bordentown City. The body that has the final say—the Falls Township Board of Supervisors—was scheduled to meet regarding Elcon for the first time. In a press release, Falls Township said the Elcon matter “could be decided” during the special meeting, held 7 p.m. in Keller Hall at Pennsbury High School West, Fairless Hills.
The meeting comes on the heels of a March 26 unanimous decision from the Falls Township planning commission to not recommend plans for the Elcon facility. The planning commission does not have legal authority, but the Falls supervisor board does factor its recommendations into decisions. Then, later in May, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection will announce its decision on a series of Phase II permit applications submitted by Elcon. If deemed technically complete, the process advances to a 45-day public comment period. Both the Falls Township meeting and the PADEP decision are important moments in a process that has drawn out for five years. But neither necessarily marks the end. If Elcon receives the approvals it seeks, it would build a 70,000-square-foot storage and treatment facility on a 33-acre plot of land on Dean Sievers Place. The plant would accept toxic waste from approximately 20 tanker trucks daily, carrying aqueous material from automotive shops, mining operations, pharmaceutical and industrial manufacturing plants. Elcon has said waste would come via truck only to Falls Township from 10 East Coast states. Liquid waste would be stored in tanks on the property until ready for treatment. Elcon is unique in that it uses thermal oxidation, not incineration, to treat waste. The treatment process separates material into four parts: sludge, salt, distilled water and volatile organic compound vapors. The VOCs would go up the facility’s stack, where they would be treated and then released into the air. Elcon’s current proposal says it will operSee TOXIC, Page 7
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