This is what one of our members read last night during the public comment hearing.

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I have been a proud resident of Maidencreek Township since 2011. This small, fierce community has provided my family with great friends and memories since moving to Longleaf Drive. We have safely raised our family in this neighborhood like many of you have; none of the people associated with this application or its myriad “studies,” expert testimonies and hearings can say the same.

I’ll begin by referring to three key portions of our township’s conditional use standards that any project must meet in order to be approved.

• 7.The use will not generate traffic that will cause undue congestion or hazardous conditions;
• 12. The use will not result in a greater impact that would normally result from other similar uses;
• 13 The use shall not adversely affect the character of the general neighborhood, nor the health and safety of residences or workers on adjacent properties and in the general neighborhood;

Let me be clear: this is a project with limited, short-term benefit for the few at an untold, long-term cost for the many, and it is a proposal that categorically fails to meet the above standards.

After nearly a year of hearings, let’s review:

• A million-square-foot warehouse built with 80 acres of concrete will overwhelm our properties with stormwater, runoff and associated pollutants. Our township could barely handle the historic rainfalls we experienced this past summer, and that’s BEFORE we add so much additional impermeable material to open land. 

• Should this property be leased by EastPenn as their official, company-wide memo suggested this summer, we would be putting our community at further risk of catastrophic damage. If they see this as a battery fulfillment center, it’s worth noting that battery fires are an environmental disaster: not only do they burn longer and hotter than more conventional building fires, but they require hazmat services AND additional resources to make things safe again. Our area already struggles for resources BEFORE considering this warehouse and its additional needs that our community would have to meet.

• The addition of 500 extra trucks per day would cripple our day to day life, and for what? A warehouse of this size, attached to one roundabout, is unprecedented. The citizens’ case made clear the uptick in traffic accidents and overturned trucks since the roundabouts were finished; what will it be like with all those extra trucks and cars servicing this property? How will our community be impacted by hours-long road closures or detours?

Corporations routinely assure us that “oh, this will never happen here” and yet when it does, all they say is “how did this happen?” Has anyone checked with the residents of East Palestine, Ohio lately when it comes to the Norfolk Southern train derailment in their town earlier this year? 

That tragedy also showed us how corporations only move to protect themselves when catastrophe strikes; do you trust the owners of this proposal to look out for the rest of us? Who will help us when things go wrong?

Throughout this process, we laypeople have been bullied, belittled and mocked during hearings simply for trying to learn more about this seismic proposal that would forever change our community. We tried to understand their intentionally dense and technical testimony, presented by experts who assure that everything is fine, but as we’ve seen with the road signs on 222 ordering people to drive safely, accidents continue to happen. These are not issues solved by signs, but by decisive action.

Do you trust the out-of-town developers to do the right thing by our community? Do you want THEIR warehouse to be YOUR legacy?