I’m still surprised that my dad and mom joined up with a gang of bell-ringing environmental warriors to stare down a multi-national corporation.
But it happened, and I was so busy working at Bucknell and raising three little girls that I didn’t pay much attention. In fact, I thought my parents had been radicalized a bit. Maybe off the deep end.
In August of 1990, just months before our third girl Hannah was born, a subsidiary of Union Pacific announced plans to build a toxic waste incinerator off Route 15 near Allenwood, PA.
U.P. had bought United States Pollution Control, Inc (USPCI) for the purpose of growing their business footprint, including the $100,000,000 facility across the road from the Lycoming County landfill.
My parents, Dartt and Jeanne, having retired from operating our Ben Franklin variety store in Watsontown, had a little extra time on their hands. They joined up with Organizations United for the Environment, a grassroots movement started in 1974 to confront the construction of the landfill.
OUE lost that battle, but they were poised to pounce on USPCI Membership grew from 40 to over 8,000 members in 7.5 weeks. By the end of 1991, that number was 17,000.
When Dad and Mom would visit us in Lewisburg, we’d hear all about the “Ban the Burner” campaign. It was strange to watch them find purpose and happiness in their new tribe of non-profit zealots.
Everyday folks like themselves were attending public meetings and shouting their opposition to men in suits.
Clyde Peeling of Reptiland fame was one of their most vocal members.
Don Snyder who ran the local Sunoco station had become a local hero as President of O.U.E..
What was behind it all?
I began to see it was more than just NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard).
Their devotion was more forward-thinking than I gave them credit for. They didn’t want the generations coming after them to live in “Trash Alley.”
It was also to force all such industries to clean up their acts at the source. Hence, their activism took on a systemic dimension as well, a realm that our household up till then rarely talked about.
My parents would bring T-shirts and hats emblazoned with the OUE message to our older two girls. Eliza still wears her trucker hat proudly, and I kept an assortment of hand-made post cards that I sent out to unsuspecting friends over the years.
But nothing could prepare me for a message I got on March 20th.
Out of the blue Rick Wolfe, a Watsontownian who runs a stained glass art studio on Main Street, sent me a photo with this message:
(This piece) was commissioned by your parents 30 years ago to commemorate the victory over USPCI. It’s going on display at the Watsontown Historical Association. It was presented to the Snyders at a picnic at the Lions Club youth center in 1994. It then hung in the office of Snyder's gas station for years. Don died 24 years ago, and it's been wrapped in a quilt behind (his wife’s) couch until today.
I had never heard of this window till I saw it in my inbox.
The panels tell the story:
A “Screw Drew” trucker cap on a deer! (Drew Lewis was Chairman and CEO of Union Pacific at the time).
Don Snyder’s gas station that sits almost underneath the White Deer overpass of Route 15.
O.U.E. logo complete with skull and crossbones. Not so subtle.
I used to think people in my home area were easily bowled over by big promises for more jobs and higher tax revenue. And though that has happened in many cases, what I didn’t know was a growing portion of these folks were through with being screwed over.
It turns out U.P. did not act in good faith. They claimed that Superfund monies would be held back from the federal government if the incinerator wasn’t built. Not so.
U.P. was following in the footsteps of the federal government who in 1942 seized 8,500 acres for the war effort, displacing farmers and the village of Alvira1 with the promise of returning all lands to their rightful owners. The promise was not kept. Instead The Federal Bureau of Prisons received 4,200 acres for the Allenwood lock-up.
Then the doozie: In 1973 the Bureau leased 125 acres to the landfill authority.
No wonder suspicion of big interests, private or governmental, runs deep in my stomping grounds.
Looking back on the 30 years since the battle began, David Hilliard had this to say:
Members of OUE fought tooth-and-nail against the proposed incinerator project, posting signs, attending local municipal meetings, filing legal actions and at one point, chaining themselves to the doors of a state office building in their effort to “ban the burner.”
Eventually, they won.
Facing new government regulations, multiple lawsuits and OUE, which had become a mighty grassroots foe, Union Pacific announced on June 8, 1994, in Danville, that it would abandon its plans, a decision that local opponents called “a rare victory for the little guy.”2
If you knew the Beckers the last attribute you’d pin on them is pretension. They were enterprising business people with a fair amount of material blessings, to be sure, but Dartt and Jeanne considered themselves “little guys.”
I’m not surprised that they quietly commissioned a handcrafted memorial that lay wrapped in a quilt for 24 years. I’m also humbled by the way they took a stand for all the little guys coming down the pike.
If want to see something strange, check out The Bunkers of Avilra on Atlas Obscura. I had a few friends over in Allenwood, and we had the pleasure of exploring some of these other-worldly domes while cows grazed lazily around us. And that’s just the beginning of weird stuff I’ve seen in that neck of the woods. That’s fodder for another Town Character entry. Keep reading, Characters!
The Bunkers of Alvira…what a cool experience exploring them must have been. Kinda jealous.
I enjoyed and was encouraged by this story! Hooray for the "little guy" and clean air!