Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper: Encina situation an opportunity to show region values transparency along with well-paying jobs and river protection

The following is a column by Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper John Zaktansky in response to the news of Encina, a company that planned to put a plastics plant on the banks of the Susquehanna River, pulling out of its Pennsylvania plans.

Imagine, for a minute, if I told you I had a cure for cancer (I don’t). 

All you needed to do was let me inject a series of shots into your bloodstream. 

What’s in those shots? I can’t tell you. It’s proprietary. Just trust me.

Have I done it before? Sure. In my basement, in a rat and it turned out great. Just trust me.

I’m ready to go big-time with this procedure. You and your body are the first human-sized trial, but my personal calculations prove (to me, at least) that this is going to go great! You are about to be a part of something innovative … just trust me.

The above daydream flooded my mind every time I thought about the Encina proposal to build a large plastic processing plant on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Point Township. 

​Of course, it is an over-embellishment of the situation, but really it isn’t as far off as some may think. As Riverkeeper, to me, the region’s bloodstream will always be the river system and the biggest concern about Encina was its potential to pollute the Susquehanna.

Today, a day after the announcement of its decision to abandon plans to build locally, I just never realized how thoroughly Encina could “contaminate” the communities surrounding that river without ever processing a piece of plastic.

Two years ago, Encina announced its intentions to build a plant that would bring in 1,200 tons of plastic a day on big rigs over area roads from New York City, Baltimore, New Jersey and other metropolitan areas, melt it down via pyrolysis through an unnamed catalyst into base components such as benzene, toluene and xylene and then ship those via rail car to plants to be turned into new plastic products.

They seemed genuinely surprised – and annoyed – that people in rural central Pennsylvania would question an out-of-state company planning to bring tons of trash into their backyard, process it with water from one of the world’s oldest river systems, turn it into chemicals with a long list of major health concerns and then transport those toxic materials through our communities. 

For some, the environmental concerns of that process – ranging from the obvious to the unseen microplastics and PFAS that could wind up in the wastewater discharged back into the river as a massive point-source pollution event – was worth the risk based on the allure of the economic impact. 

Encina suggested their company would pump $1.1 billion into the local economy and offer jobs with an average salary of $75,000. However, like the catchphrase from the TV show “Whose Line Is It Anyway” where “everything is made up and the points don’t matter” one has to wonder how accurate any numbers Encina provided really were. 

For example, in one private discussion with an official of the company, I was told the $75,000 average salary they were advertising was inflated by engineer salaries … that most everyday workers, especially those grinding it out on the floor sorting plastics, would get much, much less.

Or the constant fluctuation in estimates on how many truckloads of plastics would be traveling through our area on a daily basis. That number changed from one public meeting to the next depending on who was speaking from 50 to 75 all the way up to 200. 

So, how accurate, really, is the $1.1 billion? Enough to risk catastrophic environmental hazards into our river system? 
​
Encina has no track record of dealing with plastics on this level. The closest they have is a small demo unit in San Antonio, Texas, but Encina has kept it under tight wraps without sharing any proof that what they are doing there can safely be expanded into the mass-scale project they planned to do locally. In fact, numerous other companies have tried to do similar plastic pyrolysis projects on bigger scales and have failed almost every time in translating it from lab to factory without some sort of major malfunction. Could Encina be the first to really break that cycle? Sure … but how likely is that? 

The major concern for me, however, is the long thread of red flags. The need for Encina to constantly be running the narrative, the growing frustration every time someone asked a hard question that didn’t line up with the rosy boilerplate language they crafted ahead of time. Questions like the following (among others) never got answered directly:

• If this process is such a good thing for the environment (like recycling all this plastic, which we all know is a massive issue), than why are there no major environmental groups supporting the effort? 
• If the river water that goes through this plant comes out cleaner than what you take from the river originally, why not recycle it through the plant to reduce the amount of water that has to be pulled from the river and the amount of cleaning/filtration? 

Did Encina not realize that our region was already burned by numerous boom-and-bust industries looking to use our resources and then leave town the minute things no longer were profitable to them regardless of the impact to local families and communities? 

The bottom line is that Encina did just what their opponents predicted. When things looked difficult or not profitable enough in our area, they simply walked away.

They may not have had the chance to pollute with PFAS, but they did contaminate in other ways … through division and misdirection. Instead of fostering an opportunity to truly sit down as a collaborative and really talk through concerns on a level playing field, validating those who had concerns about what may be going on in their own backyard, Encina had this way of minimizing and ostracizing those who had legitimate questions. 

It was like: “How dare you question us for bringing all these plastics into your backyard and breaking them down into toxic core chemicals using a process we won’t tell you about and having no real experience at doing it at the level we plan to do it at!”

Anyway, they left. 

I do know it saves our association a large number of resources we were on the verge of investing on water sampling for PFAS, pharmaceuticals and microplastics in area public water reserves such as Shamokin Dam which pulls its water from the river downstream from where Encina planned to build. It was part of an extensive report we have been working on for quite some time that showed multiple layers of concern including flooding in the region, mapping overlaps of nearby environmental justice communities and watershed priority areas, potential impacts of recreational opportunities (such as Lake Augusta) downstream and specific species such as dwindling populations of Chesapeake Logperch further downriver. Another study would look historically at industries that have impacted the river to this day via studies such as one that shows legacy islands made of coal waste in the Susquehanna. We were going to dissect a plastic bale from one of the metropolitan MRF sites Encina likely planned to get stock from and then test water run through it for a wide variety of contaminants, including PFAS, microplastics and pharmaceuticals. 

But there is still a certain level of “contamination” to correct starting today … the division here in the Valley sparked by this project all comes from a love of the region and what is best for our communities, even if there is disagreement on what that should look like. 

Regardless of why Encina left, the fact that they weren’t committed to staying here and weathering whatever storm of inconvenience should tell us all we need to know about their true intentions and ability to provide the critical thinking, foresight and dedication to our region necessary to do this sort of innovative work while protecting the essential resources around our river. 

Those who questioned Encina came from a wide variety of backgrounds. Members of Save our Susquehanna (SOS) represented farmers, doctors, factory workers and others who were genuinely concerned about the long-term effects on the region. Our surveys online showed many people on both sides of the aisle shared the same concern. They were unified in wanting well-paying jobs along with careful protection of the environment. 

Encina simply failed to show that they could – and would – achieve this in Point Township. 

Don’t be mad at those that questioned Encina or the regulatory processes that are in place to keep places like Encina in check … instead, let’s unify in frustration that another company looked to come here without being fully committed to the treasures that we provide here in our backyard. At the very least, they should be willing to navigate the earliest of permits and regulatory hurdles any such business – innovative or not – is required to by the state. Our families, our communities and our resources deserve that at the very least. 

If nothing else, the Encina situation hopefully shows officials in our region, and businesses looking to come to our area, what people in our region truly value. 

Jobs and an economic boost, of course, but also real openness and transparency along with a true respect for our river and the natural resources that depend on it.