{"id":938,"date":"2025-09-05T09:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T09:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2025\/09\/05\/2025-09-05-court-rejects-landfill-permit\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:10:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:10:00","slug":"2025-09-05-court-rejects-landfill-permit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/2025\/09\/05\/2025-09-05-court-rejects-landfill-permit\/","title":{"rendered":"Court rejects landfill\u00a0permit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Matthew Purucker<\/a> · News Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania rejected a Tri-County Industries Inc. permit to reopen the Tri-County landfill off Grove City’s South Center Street Ext. in an Aug. 7 decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The news thrilled members of the Citizens’ Environmental Association of the Slippery Rock Area (CEASRA), who have opposed the landfill resuming waste disposal operations for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is the most promising court decision that has occurred in our 35-year battle against the landfill reopening,” CEASRA media liaison Dan Biddle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the landfill’s closure in 1990, Tri-County has used the landfill as a transfer station. If the court had approved the permit, the company could deposit a maximum of 4,000 tons of waste into the landfill per day, six days per week, for at least 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This volume of out-of-state garbage would have created an incredible volume of truck traffic, noise, dust, birds and negative environmental conditions for miles surrounding the greater Grove City area and certainly (would have) been a noticeable eyesore to the college students and community,” Biddle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court decided to revoke the permit because the landfill is within 10,000 feet of Grove City Airport. A 1997 law prohibits landfills within that distance because landfill waste can attract birds within the flight path of airplanes. That endangers planes, which can collide with birds or ingest them into their engines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tri-County reasoned that the law did not apply to the landfill due to the company’s earlier permit that allowed the landfill to be active from 1950-90. The court disagreed because Tri-County did not have a valid permit at the time of that legislation (1997).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don’t know that the college would be terribly affected by it,” English professor Jeffrey Bilbro said. “Certainly, (there) would be a lot more traffic on that road, but I don’t think that’s a huge deal. \u2026 How concerned would (students and faculty) be about the groundwater contamination from the landfill, and particularly the fracking waste? There’s pretty good evidence that it’s not nice stuff. And other landfills operated by Vogel (Holding Inc.) and other landfills in PA that have taken this stuff have a pretty bad history of contaminating the groundwater and the streams in the area.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Biddle, Tri-County filed an “unlikely” petition with the Commonwealth Court to rehash oral arguments, and CEASRA submitted its responses. If the court denies that rehearing, Tri-County could appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which could accept or decline to hear the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CEASRA previously appealed the permit to the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board, the judicial branch of the Department of Environmental Protection, before appealing to the Commonwealth Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our legal battle against the landfill will continue for quite some time, pending decisions by the Commonwealth Court and potentially the Supreme Court. CEASRA will continue their fundraising efforts and filing environmental grant applications to afford future legal actions,” Biddle said. “Though the landfill battle has been our focus for the past few decades, CEASRA will also study and engage in other environmental issues that could negatively impact the greater Grove City and Slippery Rock communities.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Bilbro, Tri-County was surprised by the decision, having already begun construction on the landfill property. Bilbro has followed Grove City environmental issues since becoming a professor at the college in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think students need to know about it. I worry sometimes that college students, maybe they go to church in the community, or they go to Walmart or something, but they don’t really attend the place they’re at because you’re not from here, you’re not planning on living here. I get that,” Bilbro said. “But I think just at least being aware of some of these local political issues is really good practice for being a good citizen of the local place that you inhabit, wherever that is, because you’re a resident here now. So even if you don’t vote in local elections, you still belong here, and you have an obligation to pay attention and do what you can to help out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania rejected a Tri-County Industries Inc. permit to reopen the Tri-County landfill off Grove City’s South Center Street Ext. in an Aug. 7 decision. The news thrilled members<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[91,18,26],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-regional","tag-matthew-purucker","tag-news","tag-issue-2025-09-05"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Ian Schartner","author_link":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/author\/schartnerij23\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania rejected a Tri-County Industries Inc. permit to reopen the Tri-County landfill off Grove City's South Center Street Ext. in an Aug. 7 decision. The news thrilled members","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2024,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/2024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuorgs2.gcc.edu\/thecollegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}