The Viewmont Mall, in Dickson City, has spectacular views of the Wyoming Valley: rolling green mountains, clusters of neat homes and Scranton's bustling downtown. But there are a few mountains that look a little different than the others.
"See the sort of messy piles up at the top?" Michele Dempsey is pointing across the valley from her car. "Where it looks, like, black? That's where the active face is, that is where they are putting garbage."
Dempsey is talking about the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, a 750-acre operation that accepts 7,250 tons of refuse in 520 heavy trucks each day, much of it from out of state. Dempsey is the founder of a group called Friends of Lackawanna that's trying to stop the expansion of KSL.
Keystone Crossroads is a new statewide public media initiative reporting on the challenges facing Pennsylvania's cities. WPSU is a participating station.
