BETHLEHEM TOWNSHIP, Pa. – When quality of life and big business meet, it’s not always pretty.
Residents in a Bethlehem Township community say the Bethlehem Landfill is not fulfilling its duties of being a good neighbor.
“We knew it was over there, but you really didn’t see or know that it was right there, because it was completely quiet and it was just, it was just a mountain,” Tina Bartley said.
Now, after two years, Bartley says the landscape across her Bethlehem Township neighborhood off of Farmersville has radically changed.
Her home sits in the shadow of the Bethlehem Landfill’s northern expansion, and its ever growing pile up of garbage.
“I see dust, all the pollution that’s coming from, it scares me about, you know, my health, and the river, the animals that are over there,” Bartley described.
Bartley, also on the Township’s Environmental Council, is concerned over pollution, odors and deforestation.
In January, the Lower Saucon Township-based landfill was fined $137,000 by the state DEP for five years of violations.
Lower Saucon Township citizen Lynn Hill says the Landfill isn’t being a good neighbor.
“My biggest concern really, is that the landfill just keeps wanting to expand,” she said.
Hill was part of the push back to halt the landfill from expanding into conservation easements.
“We have to keep reminding the landfill, reminding DEP, to keep things cleaned up, you know, to keep mitigating the nuisances,” Hill added.
As for Bartley, what she thought was her forever home may now come with an expiration date.
“If I would have known about the expansion and what it would look like, I definitely would have considered somewhere else,” she said.
We did reach out to Bethlehem Landfill and the DEP but did not hear back.
Lower Saucon Township says this is still a very big issue for them.