Pennsylvania residents near a power plant construction site are circulating a petition that claims heavy truck traffic is shaking their homes, kicking up dust and polluting the air.
One resident says diesel smoke from the dump trucks is so thick that kids playing nearby outside can taste it, according to wnep.com. That resident also claims that the foundation of one of the homes near the trucks’ route has cracked.
Forty-five dump trucks have been traveling back and forth to the Salem Township job site daily from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. carrying loads of stone to help build the Caithness Moxie Freedom Power Plant. Construction began there a few months ago.
The trucks travel an 8-mile route from a stone quarry in Newport Township to the job site, about 20 miles southwest of Wilkes-Barre. Along the way, the trucks pass the Glen Lyon neighborhood where residents in about 20 homes have been complaining.
Gemma Power Systems, which is handling the construction of the $1 billion natural gas fueled power plant, says the trucks aren’t violating any laws and that it would be very difficult to stop the vehicles this far into the plant’s construction.
Gemma Power hopes to add 15 more trucks and reports that the project may take another two-and-a-half years to complete.
Residents plan on passing along their petition to Newport Township supervisors in February.
Residents in Glen Lyon, Penn. say dump trucks involved in the construction of a nearby power plant are shaking their homes and polluting the air. The billion-dollar plant is being built off State Road 11, between Shickshinny and Berwick in Salem Township (outlined area on the left).
