Natural Soil Products is pushing back on Schuylkill County’s order to get zoning permits for its biosolids facility. The company says the county has known about its operation for nearly 30 years and never raised a problem.
The company filed an appeal of the county’s Aug. 19 order with the County’s Planning and Zoning Office. NSP says it received the order on or about Aug. 24. The Schuylkill County Zoning Hearing Board will hear the appeal at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10 at Schuylkill County Courthouse in Pottsville.
The County told NSP to apply for zoning permits after the fact, both for its biosolids operation and for four buildings the county says went up without permits, Coal Region Canary reported in September. The county says the only zoning permit on file for the site dates to 1992 and covers leaf and yard waste composting.
In its appeal, NSP says the County got it wrong. The company says it has run the site since 1997 with the knowledge and approval of every agency and municipality involved, and that its buildings went up with the approval of all regulators.
The heart of NSP’s argument is that the County waited too long. The company says the County was notified every time NSP applied for state permits for the facility, yet never once asked for a zoning permit. NSP says it spent significant money building up its operation while relying on the County’s lack of objection. It says the County now has no legal or factual basis to demand permits for buildings put up in 2015, 2016 and 2018 through 2021.
To back that up, NSP included a list of 24 notices and permits going back to December 1997 with its response to the County. Most are notices sent to the County Commissioners, either by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection or by NSP itself.
Many are DEP approvals allowing NSP to take in sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants. Local plants include those in Tremont, Pottsville, Minersville and Cressona. Out-of-state plants include those in New York City; Yonkers, New York; Rahway, New Jersey; and Greenwich, Connecticut.
The list also includes notices NSP sent the Commissioners when it applied to renew its DEP permit in 2006, 2016 and February 2026. It includes a 2018 notice that NSP was adding a biosolids composting building, and three building permits from 2018, 2020, and 2025.
NSP’s appeal says Schuylkill County Municipal Authority took over the Tremont wastewater treatment plant about 10 years ago and has kept sending its treated sludge to NSP ever since. NSP says that shows local governments went along with its operation.
The company also says Schuylkill County Planning Commission took part in an online DEP hearing around 2020 or 2021. The hearing was on NSP’s request to raise the amount of biosolids it could take in from 300 tons a day to 400. According to the appeal, the commission got a copy of the application and asked questions about the sludge coming in. NSP says DEP considered those questions answered, and the County never pursued the matter further.
The county’s Tax Assessment office also came out to the property after the buildings went up and reassessed it to raise its property taxes, NSP says. The assessors never mentioned a zoning problem.
The appeal responds to three of the four buildings the County flagged:
- For the 88,000-square-foot building the county says went up between 2016 and 2018, NSP points to the permits and approvals on its list.
- For the 900-square-foot structure, NSP says it isn’t sure what the county is referring to. The company says it may be a roof over a three-sided concrete area where biosolids are dropped off before going into concrete composting bunkers, which could look like a building on Google Maps. NSP says the local building inspector told the company that structure didn’t need a permit.
- For a building the county describes as about 105,000 square feet and built between 2018 and 2021, the appeal lists a 1,500-square-foot building from the same period. It says that could be an open-sided compost shelter on the west side of the property that was built before 2006.
The appeal doesn’t address the fourth building. That is a 20,000-square-foot structure the county said may match a maintenance building approved in 2004.
NSP says shutting down its operation would cause it substantial hardship. As a backup, NSP is asking the board for a special exception. That is permission for a use the zoning rules allow in a given area only with the hearing board’s approval. Both NSP parcels are in zoning districts where commercial composting can be allowed, according to the appeal and the hearing notice.
NSP says the County’s zoning rules don’t specifically mention turning sewage sludge into compost, but that the work falls under what the industry considers commercial composting. The company says its operation follows the County’s rules and all regulators’ requirements. It also says the operation wouldn’t add any traffic beyond what the site already sees.
NSP is currently asking DEP to renew the state permit it needs to process waste at the site. The County Commissioners have asked the state to deny it. People living near the facility have complained for years about odors they blame on the operation.
On Thursday, Nov. 5, DEP is hosting a public hearing to get feedback from the public on NSP’s permit renewal application. The meeting is set for 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Tremont’s Municipal Building, 139 Clay St.
The Nov. 10 County Zoning hearing is also open to the public. Anyone with legal standing, typically people directly affected by the decision such as neighbors, may testify.
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