Elcon To Submit Documentation To State Within 70 Days

Elcon plans to submit their Phase II application to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection within the next two and a half months.

Kelly Henry, a spokesperson from Elcon, told LevittownNow.com the Part B and Phase II applications would be submitted to DEP officials within the next 60 to 70 days.

Elcon, an Israeli company, is working to construct a 70,000-square-foot facility on 22 developed acres of a larger 33 acre property inside the Keystone Industrial Port Complex (KIPC) in Falls Township. The facility would be built about a mile from the Delaware River and would not release any treated waste water into the waterway.

With the proposal, many vocal residents from Bucks County and New Jersey riverfront towns have spoken against it and raised concerns about its safety. At the same time, a smaller group of area residents, most those who work in the building trades, have vocally supported construction of the facility.

“Elcon appreciates the community’s interest and concerns regarding its proposed facility and is actively working to incorporate and respond to the public input it has received in its designs and plans,” Henry said. “The purpose of the pre-application meeting was to gather community input prior to the submittal of the Part B and Phase II applications, so that the input received could be reviewed and incorporated where feasible and appropriate in our submissions.”

The proposed facility would accept hazardous liquid waste streams by truck only from a variety of industries, but will not treat waste from radioactive activities or fracking, according to Elcon officials. They added that the facility will primarily treat waste-water within the tri-state area of the Delaware Valley, with 20-30 percent of it’s customers estimated to come directly from inside the KIPC.

The process of treating the water will not include deep well injection or incineration, and will instead provide a third way for treatment. The process is known as thermal oxidation, according to Elcon representative Dr. Rengarajan Ramesh.

Opponents to the facility have made their voices heard by attending meetings about the project. The majority of speakers at Elcon’s mandatory pre-application community information session and public meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in Falls were against the facility. The story was similar at the Falls and Lower Makefield board of supervisors meetings in recent weeks.

Some of the biggest concerns from opponents are centered around transportation of the waste water to the facility, containment in case of a spill and disposal of any extra waste.

To protect the Delaware River from potential impacts due to unforeseen human error or natural circumstances, Elcon will meet or exceed all state and federal requirements for containment in the areas where waste materials will be stored, treated or transferred to prevent accidental releases. Additionally, the facility will have alarms and other indicators to prevent the overfill of tanks,” Elcon officials have stated. They also added that the staff will be highly trained, and the company does have pollution insurance.

Elcon still needs approval from the state and township before they can even more forward on construction of a facility.