The Save Carbon County Northface Project Committee held a press conference Thursday in front of Palmerton Borough Hall to discuss the Northface Project.

The purpose of the gathering held before the Palmerton Borough Council meeting was to release findings regarding the Northface Project located at the former Palmerton Zinc West Plant at the entrance to Palmerton from Route 248.

Dan Kunkle, nationally recognized for his leadership of the remediation of the Blue Mountain slope on the Southside of the Lehigh River, and representatives of Save Carbon County who are leading an effort to end this project were on hand.

“A for-profit company is bringing toxic fill into this borough for their profit,” Kunkle said. “To my knowledge, they have not done anything to benefit the community.

“We’re upset about it, and we’re upset for the people who live along Mauch Chunk Road,” Kunkle said. “They have endured environmental injustice for well over a century; first with the Zinc Company, they had to endure the pollution and the dust and so forth, but the Zinc Company gave them jobs, gave them health care, gave them pensions, and did their best to control the pollution, they did as good as they could at the time with the technology that existed.

“Now we have a company who is knowingly bringing toxic fill in, dumping it on top of their aquifer for their own profit and no benefit for this community. All the people on Mauch Chunk Road get is the traffic and the noise and the fumes, the dust, and leaving this toxic waste behind.

“We think it’s time for (the Department of Environmental Protection) to say enough, this has been going on for 16 years, Northface wants their permit renewed,” he said.

“We think it’s time for DEP to become the Department of Environmental Protection, protect the Lehigh River from this possible source of contamination which provide drinking water with the Lehigh and the Delaware, millions of people drink that water, and also to protect the people that live nearby here, live along the site, and protect their lives.

“We’re calling on DEP to refuse to renew the permit for Northface, and require them to cap that fill and protect the people and protect the environment.”

Nearby resident Debbie Smith said it’s affected the people of Palmerton.

“Ever since then, we’ve had nothing for the last 16 years except trucks coming through on Mauch Chunk Road where I live, and it has ripped up the roads,” Smith said. “Several times we had really deep potholes where the trucks went through, and the noise has been pretty loud with the trucks coming through as well. Can hear them working, my house is actually on the other side of the railroad tracks, I can’t see them, but I do hear them working all hours of the night.

“It’s really discouraging that after 16 years we have nothing to show for all of this inconvenience, and not only inconvenience, which is bad enough, but the environmental impact, some of my neighbors have reported smelling really foul smells coming from that site. I understand that some of the dirt that’s coming from there is coming from places like the Hudson River, it just doesn’t belong in Palmerton, I know that.

“The big huge (mountains) of dirt that are piling up there, it’s unsightly, it’s embarrassing. I understand that some of my neighbors as well have seen an increase in rats, which are they coming in with this dirt that’s coming from New York and New Jersey, it just doesn’t belong here.

“I really would like to see these permits stopped. I would like Northface to honor their pledge to put something in which is going to benefit the people in Palmerton.

Smith added she’s really concerned about the storm drains that are on Mauch Chunk Road and in the alley behind Mauch Chunk Road, which is Railroad Alley.

“That pipe is under now mounds and mounds of dirt, and if that would get blocked, I believe that drain, that stormwater could have the potential to back up onto Railroad Alley right in back of my house and Mauch Chunk Road, so that’s a big concern as well,” she said. “So I would like to see Northface stop dumping and start doing something good for Palmerton.”

Linda Christman, president, Save Carbon County, said they have contacted DEP, but hasn’t gotten a response yet.

“When they gave the permit, there was a site plan for the project, and I want to make sure that DEP is making sure that this project is meeting that site plan, that the elevations aren’t higher than they should be, and that they’ve taken into account things like the drainage and so on, “Christman said. “Secondly, I want them to do samples themselves to make sure that what they’re putting on top is clean fill, because we looked at the reports from last year, and they’re bringing in 10 times more regulated fill than they are clean fill, now if they’re closing off the project which they should be, why is that.

“They should be bringing in at this point more clean fill than regulated fill, because they’re supposed to be working on that 2-feet cap. For 16 years, this had been a landfill, we don’t want it to continue to be a landfill.