DUNMORE -- Officials with a landfill in Lackawanna County said in order for the landfill to keep taking trash they need to make some piles higher.
Keystone Sanitary Landfill is seeking approval to grow the dump up.
In a proposal to the Department of Environmental Protection, officials from Keystone Sanitary Landfill said, at the rate they are going, they have less than a decade left before they break environmental standards.
Now, they're looking to change those standards to accept more trash. So, the landfill that is in the boroughs of Dunmore and Throop would grow up instead of out.
The landfill borders the boroughs' residential areas and two highways. Officials with the landfill told the Department of Environmental Protection, in order for the landfill to stay open they need grow up, not out.
Keystone Sanitary Landfill has asked for DEP approval to increase capacity so the landfill can sustain for 50 more years. The extra trash would go on the flat part of the landfill near its main entrance.
"Two Hundred feet higher beats building a new facility. It makes the world of sense," said Annmarie Nester of Throop.
Neither the landfill nor the DEP can say how high the new piles would go, but they said it wouldn't be noticeable to the public for the first few years.
DEP officials said the expansion would not affect the part of the landfill that people see when they are driving on the Casey Highway. That part is already so high that on a really windy day, trash blows over to the other side of the highway.
People who live in Dunmore, Throop, and parts of Scranton said also on windy days, or particularly hot days, they become very aware of the landfill.
"That's about the only time that you notice it, when it's dead summer and it's hot, sticky, and miserable," Nester said.
Some people Newswatch 16 talked to, like Colleen Weaver of Scranton, think the Keystone Sanitary Landfill has run its course and the company should build a new one in a more rural location.
"Maybe we can go back later down the years, go back to it, but for now if it's too much and it's really getting that stinky, that we have to do something," Weaver said.
The proposal to expand the landfill still needs DEP approval. The proposal is available to the public for 60 days. Officials with the DEP said they will make a decision after that, probably within the next 90 days.