Once the application was withdrawn, all work in the project by the township and its consultants ceased since there is no pending application before either the Planning Commission or board of supervisors.
On October 7, 2019, Synagro submitted letters to the DEP, requesting that the various permit applications under review by the DEP be "suspended". The letters further indicated that Synagro had met many of the township's requirements, and that only a few deficiencies remained. Synagro's representative implied in the letters that Synagro would work with the township to resolve the remaining deficiencies, and it requested a year to work things out.
Synagro letter to DEP Centr... on Scribd
As reported on this blog, all mention of the Slate Belt Heat Recovery Center was scrubbed from Synagro's website within only a few weeks of the letters to DEP requesting that their applications be suspended - rather suspicious considering DEP was led to believe the project is still being pursued, and only some i's need to be dotted and t's crossed.
The DEP appears unwilling to wait a year. On December 20, 2019, DEP responded to Synagro's request by setting a date of March 31, 2020 for a status update of Synagro's progress in resolving its deficiencies... in a non-existent application before the township. Township Manager Petrucci remarked in October that without a Site Plan or Land Development Plan pending, he did not see how the activities described in Synagro's October 7, 2019 letters could proceed.
Letter from DEP to Synagro,... on Scribd
As of today's date, the township has not received a new application from Synagro, and has not received any contact regarding Synagro's withdrawn application - including the work on deficiencies suggested would be pursued in the October 7, 2019 letters. The deadline for submissions for the Planning Commission's February meeting was last Friday, so nothing could conceivably be considered by the township until the March 16 meeting - only two weeks prior to the deadline.
A DEP representative stated recently that the March 31 deadline was set so that Synagro's DEP permit applications would not "sit on the books" for an extended period of time. The permit applications are currently in limbo, until the March 31 deadline, at which time it will be determined to suspend them, or reject them. The writing appears to be on the wall... there is no longer a project status page on their website, there is no application pending on which to base a resolution of deficiencies. There will be nothing to report on March 31.
