Synagro asks for suit dismissal

Synagro has asked a Carbon County judge to throw out East Penn Township’s lawsuit blocking Synagro from using treated sewage sludge, also known as biosolids, as fertilizer on a farm in the township.

Synagro Central LLC filed a motion in Carbon County Court earlier this month. Synagro wants the judge to overturn a township ordinance regulating biosolids, because Synagro feels it violates state law.

East Penn Township residents are strongly opposed to the use of biosolids on the farm. They packed hearings last spring and displayed yard signs for much of the past year protesting the use. The township had filed its own motion to dismiss late last year, but Judge Steven R. Serfass rejected it July 1.

The judge has given all parties in the case until Oct. 28 to file briefs in advance of oral arguments scheduled for Nov. 22.

Synagro and the Cunfer Farm, also known as Never Done Farm, haven’t used any biosolids as fertilizer yet. Since last May, when the township filed suit, a court order has blocked the farm from using the fertilizer until the case is resolved.

The township has also appealed the case to the state’s Environmental Hearing Board, but they agreed to put that appeal on hold while the case in county court is decided.

The farm is owned by the husband and sister-in-law of East Penn Township Supervisor Deanna Cunfer, who was removed by the board as vice president a few months after the application was filed. The Department of Environmental Protection has approved the 123-acre farm to use biosolids.

Lawyers for Synagro and the farmers say that the use of biosolids as fertilizer is regulated by the state and not local government.

They argue that East Penn Township’s Ordinance No. 77 conflicts with the state law regarding biosolids. Multiple cases have resulted in the state and federal courts in Pennsylvania striking down similar ordinances on the grounds that state law pre-empts them, according to Synagro.

An official with the state attorney general’s office recently agreed that the ordinance violates state law.

Senior Deputy Robert A. Willig was responding to a request from a member of the Cunfer family to interpret the state’s Agricultural Communities and Rural Environment Law. Willig wrote that biosolids are a normal agricultural operation, and is therefore protected under the state’s Right to Farm Act. Willig cited a 2015 case involving Synagro where the state Supreme Court agreed that using biosolids is a normal agricultural operation.

The lawyers for Synagro and the farmers point out that the state’s solid waste management law gives DEP alone the power to regulate the use of biosolids. The law requires that DEP does not harm the safety or welfare of the people or environment of the state.

The township’s ordinance, passed in 1996, requires that anyone conducting “disposal activity” in the township must convince the supervisors that it does not impact water supplies.

Township attorney Robert Frycklund wasn’t available for comment on Tuesday.