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NEW RINGGOLD — A meeting called to vote on a controversial sewerage sludge ordinance ended with at least one resignation and no vote at all.
East Brunswick Township Vice Chairman Mark J. Killian Sr. signed a letter of resignation and East Brunswick Supervisor Glenn W. Miller vowed he would resign and stormed out Thursday before a vote could be taken at the New Ringgold Community Fire Company.
“You people don’t want to listen to anything we have to say. I’m not going to stand here and be sued for everything I own,” Killian said as his comments were drowned out by shouting from nearly 200 people.
The resignations followed a tense hour of exchange between the board, a crowd of mostly township residents and community leaders over for the proposed ordinance banning corporate sludge spreading.
“This meeting is effectively over,” said township solicitor James Menconi following the departure of Killian and Miller.
Supervisors Chairman Richard Ketz said he was unable even to act upon Killian’s resignation because of the lack of a board majority and that Miller would likely submit his resignation in the morning.
The outcome puts on hold an East Brunswick vote on an ordinance similar to one passed in Tamaqua and Rush Township banning the corporate application of sewerage sludge, also called biosolids.
Some local homeowners became alarmed two months ago when Synagro, a Texas-based firm that claims it uses the material in 34 states including Pennsylvania, announced plans to apply sludge on two local farms comprising 300 acres along River Road.
Ketz said Thursday one of the two land owners, Jeff Hill, has decided against applying the material. At the meeting, however, Jake Smith, the son of the other landowner Susan Smith, said they plan to move forward with the proposed application.
Critics worry that human and animal pathogens, heavy metals and harmful compounds in the material pose significant health risks and one study has catalogued 39 incidents in 15 states in which more than 328 residents near land application have reported illnesses.
In August, Mark Reider, Pennsylvania technical services director of Synagro, said critics are ignoring regulatory changes that have reduced pathogens and other wastes significantly in the material through both increased treatment and identifying and removing industrial and other harmful sources from the waste stream.
“It’s not disposal,” said Reider, who insisted at the time that agricultural application of the material saves farmers $150 to $200 an acre in fertilizer costs because of nutrient value including nitrogen and phosphate.
A 1999 Penn State report on sewerage sludge quality shows concentrations of lead, copper, chromium, cadmium, mercury, zinc and nickel have all decreased since 1978.
While critics blame the material for the deaths of at least two people in Pennsylvania and one in New Hampshire, though officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Agency claim no link between the deaths and sludge.
The deaths of 17-year-old Daniel Pennock; 11-year-old Tony Behun, who had become ill and died after riding a motorbike across a field treated with sewage sludge; and 26-year-old Shayne Connor in Greenland, N.H., have all been blamed on the material by critics.
“There is not proof positive, but there’s an awful lot of suspicion. There’s a lot of literature,” said Dr. Glenn Freed, a gastroenterologist who lives near the site where the sludge application is being proposed.
Menconi said he had advised the supervisors the proposed ordinance would not survive court challenge and the supervisors had been worried about liability issues.
Freed confronted Reider at Thursday’s meeting, asking him if his company would really sue the township over the ordinance.
“That’s not my decision,” Reider said.
Menconi said the residents must now submit a petition of at least 15 registered township voters to the Schuylkill County Court of Common Pleas to appoint supervisors to fill the two vacancies on the board.
Freed said citizens would likely deliver the petition to the court by Monday. A sludge ordinance advertised last month can only be voted upon once a new board is named.
Last month, Miller said he might resign because a conflict of interest — his part ownership in a local development, which might open him for personal liability if he voted to approve the ordinance.
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