Lawsuit to block Bethlehem Landfill expansion can go forward, judge rules

EASTON, Pa. — A lawsuit that seeks to block Bethlehem Landfill’s planned expansion can move forward, a Northampton County judge ruled Wednesday.

The judge rejected a string of challenges from the landfill company.

Attorneys representing a group of Lower Saucon Township residents who live near the landfill filed the suit in 2023. St. Luke’s Anderson Campus hospital, Bethlehem Township and Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor soon joined as intervenors.

The suit contends that Lower Saucon Township Council didn't have the right to dissolve conservation easements blocking development on more than 200 acres of woodlands along the Lehigh River — land where the dump plans to build 86 acres of new disposal area.

In response, lawyers for Bethlehem Landfill asked Northampton County Judge Abraham Kassis to throw out the challenge, arguing that none of the plaintiffs or intervenors had the right to sue.

Kassis rejected those arguments in a decision filed Wednesday, writing that all of the plaintiffs and intervenors would conceivably be harmed by expanding the landfill.

'Harm alleged is not speculative'

Kassis wrote that all meet the bar to challenge the easements’ release in court.

He also found that the dissolved conservation easements specifically mention the D&L Corridor, giving them additional grounds to sue.

All of the plaintiffs and intervenors “have standing as public beneficiaries to challenge the release of the restrictive easements as the factual record is sufficient to establish their substantial, direct and immediate interests would be by the release of the easements,” Kassis wrote.

“The harm alleged is not speculative where Lower Saucon Township has voted to remove the conservation easements, and there does not appear to be a factual dispute that such action was taken to facilitate landfill expansion.”

Kassis similarly rejected the landfill attorneys’ argument that parts of the lawsuit did not have enough specific information to mount a defense.

One small win

Bethlehem Landfill notched one small one win in Wednesday’s decision: Even if the lawsuit succeeds, the court will not overturn a zoning ordinance that cleared the way for Bethlehem Landfill’s expansion.

Four other cases challenging the zoning change and a development plan for the landfill expansion will decide whether the ordinance stands.

Other remedies the lawsuit asks the court to impose, including an order stopping the planned landfill expansion, still are on the table.

Kassis’s ruling is “just the latest in a long string of victories” for the Lower Saucon residents who filed the suit, said Gary Asteak, their attorney.

“It's the most recent, but it won't be the last.”

With the question of standing resolved, lawyers for the Bethlehem Landfill Company next will respond to the substance of the lawsuit against it.

Representatives for the landfill and its parent company, Waste Connections, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.