Stanley P. Brozana Jr., 72 – Served 37 Years as Orwigsburg Police Chief
Schuylkill County Commissioners have come out against a proposed expansion of operations at a biosolids processing facility in the western end of the county.
In a letter to Erika Bloxham, a facilities specialist with the Dept. of Environmental Protection’s Waste Management Program, the Commissioners say they’ve previously received odor complaints from the area Liberty Soils operates.
Liberty Soils – which operates in Reilly, Branch, and Tremont townships – has applied for a Major Permit Modification with DEP. A public comment period to respond to this application expired on Wednesday.
The company wants to accept a daily average of 300 tons of biosolids and up to 500 tons per day. It also wants to rename its curing building and covered product storage area to Storage Buildings and redefine the function of Storage Buildings to allow for product curing and storage.
Right now, Liberty Soils accepts up to 300 wet tons of dewatered biosolids per day. Those biosolids are mixed with quicklime, coal ash, and/or lime kiln dust to create the company’s final product, which is a soil-like material that’s marketed as a soil additive or soil substitute. This product has agricultural applications and is used to reclaim abandoned mine lands and as landfill cover.
In their letter, Schuylkill County Commissioners ask DEP to consider the previous odor complaints sourced to areas near Liberty’s facility when it ponders the Major Permit Modification application.
“There are other areas in the west end of the County that have similar facilities that create malodors, as you are aware. That being said, the Board of Commissioners cannot support the approval of the permit modification,” the Commissioners say in their letter.
The board also says that since Liberty Soils is located in an Environmental Justice Area, DEP should assess whether the project qualifies under the Environmental Justice Policy.
“If it does not automatically trigger the policy, we request that it be designated as an “Opt-In Project” to ensure proactive community engagement and an enhanced public participation process,” the Commissioners say.
Watch the Schuylkill County Commissioners meeting from March 26 here …
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Pat Eichman
March 28, 2025 at 9:11 am
Lime kiln dust contains the polluting chemicals that are extracted from the smoke stacks at a kiln. Why would you want to combine it with biosolids, which contain concentrated pollutants from every entity on the sewer line. Households, garages, hospitals, veterinarians, funeral parlors, manufacturing, whatever. Human sewage itself often contains various hormones, radiation from cancer treatment patients and all kinds of drugs which then combine to create new chemicals. Cleaning and personal care products usually contain non-biodegradable or “forever” chemicals which do not break down into their components. This is biosolids.