Reviews were harsh Wednesday night as a packed crowd listened to a formal presentation by Israel’s Elcon, the company hoping to build a liquid hazardous waste treatment facility in Falls Township.
Dr. Rengarajan Ramesh, a consultant for Elcon, after giving a small presentation to the Morrisville Town Watch group Tuesday night, found himself tightly packed into the Princeton Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel, with dozens of residents against his cause.
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Elcon, has worked tirelessly for at least the last year, going through statutory requirements deemed necessary by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), in an effort to build a 2-3 acre facility within the Keystone Industrial Port Complex. The facility, which Ramesh has said will not for the record treat nuclear, radioactive, or fracking water waste, will help change an industry that has been around for quite some time and make it, “clean, green, and sustainable.”
Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com
According to Ramesh, Elcon’s process to clean liquid hazardous waste, which he compared Tuesday night to “dirty sink water”, will be to heat up the hazardous water and then place it in pools to be evaporated into the air. Rather than with an incinerator, where the byproduct of such a process is typically ash, the byproduct of Elcon’s process will be largely salts.
Elcon was back before crowds Wednesday night as part of the public discussion section of the DEP Phase I guidelines. Elcon’s previous plans, which were rejected this past winter, featured a process that pumped distilled water into the Delaware River. Yet even with the change in processes, Elcon still hasn’t impressed a large percentage of residents.
“We only have 1% of fresh water. I am so excited you want to stand up and protect it- that’s exactly what we are trying to do.” -Dr. Ramesh
— Amanda Kuehnle (@amandaMkuehnle) August 13, 2015
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While residents said they didn’t want trucks carrying waste driving by their house and through their neighborhoods, Dr. Ramesh said that process is already occuring. He promised the actual Elcon facility will not be noticeable to the public and will be free of noise and odor.
“You’re asking all the right questions,” Ramesh told the crowd Wednesday night. “But I don’t want you to be misinformed.”
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Residents main concern? The health and safety of their neighborhoods and children with a facility so close by.
A former safety director of US Steel said he can no longer trust the DEP to protect his family when he’s gone. pic.twitter.com/obS1gN56KO
— Amanda Kuehnle (@amandaMkuehnle) August 13, 2015
Ramesh remarked that the facility is state of the art, and one for the future. “No one else in the world is using this technology right now,” he said. Dr. Ramesh said his love for the environment is why Elcon has created such a green facility, one that will eventually operate off the own water it cleans.
Dr. Ramesh of Elcon said that valuable resident comments has already given the company great ideas to make their process more viable.
— Amanda Kuehnle (@amandaMkuehnle) August 13, 2015
While Elcon’s consultant spoke more of educational opportunities at the Tuesday night meeting, he assured residents they would be seeking “local talent” through a job fair to employ roughly 120 union workers at the facility.
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“As long as Elcon is going to follow DEP guidelines and it’s going to put people to work, it’s a win win,” one Falls resident said.
A Phase I testimony meeting will be held in the coming weeks after the public has time to review Elcon’s plans.
