Traffic to the Grand Central Landfill recycling center will not use Pen Argyl Road, a Waste Management Inc. official said Thursday.
Waste Management, owner of Grand Central, will keep traffic to the $42 million center on Route 512, senior district manager Henry Angelini told the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission on Thursday. That confirmed comments made earlier this week.
Brian Hite, a transportation planner with the LVPC, said plans submitted for review showed trucks using a Pen Argyl Road entrance. On Tuesday, officials of Waste Management said at an LVPC committee meeting that the idea had been dropped, but it was on the plans submitted earlier.
LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley said the commission has to review what it had, and those plans show a gate on Pen Argyl Road. That means the recycling center plan might appear again on the commission’s agenda.
“Should they make a major revision to the plan as they suggested they were going to at the committee meeting, those plans have to be resubmitted to us,” Bradley said.
The LVPC has a professional staff that makes recommendations on big developments in Lehigh and Northampton counties, and 37 appointed commissioners who consider and vote on those reviews. Final land-use decisions are made by municipalities — in this case, Plainfield. The Grand Central plan remains under review in the township.
The recycling facility would open in the first quarter of 2025, replacing a center in Northampton Borough.
Scott Perin, area director of disposal operations for Waste Management, said Tuesday that the Northampton facility is on leased land and is not suited to new technology that will extract more recyclable material.
The company’s plan is to use about 23 acres of Plainfield land for a “materials recovery facility,” or MRF in the jargon of recycling. The 92,000-square-foot building will be adjacent to the Grand Central Landfill, and bring in about 60 more trucks per day, according to Waste Management, while the LVPC report estimates 271 weekday truck trips.
Keeping all the traffic on Route 512 would prevent potential backups on Pen Argyl Road. Still, the plan will add traffic on the state route through the centers of Wind Gap, Pen Argyl, Bangor and East Bangor, the LVPC report said.
“The municipality (Plainfield) and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation should monitor the potential impact of the increased number of trucks along this roadway,” the LVPC recommendations said.
LVPC: Upper Saucon warehouse complex needs truck parking, crash-rate monitoring
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission said the proposed 1.77 million square feet of warehouses will add traffic on a road that’s already ‘a high-crash corridor.’
The LVPC commissioners approved the staff review, which will be sent to Plainfield and other Slate Belt communities that may be affected by the development.
The commission also voted in favor of a staff review of the Route 309 Commerce Center, a three-warehouse, 1.77-million-square-foot plan for Upper Saucon Township.