Where to go with the garbage

By DAVID HULSE

MONTICELLO — Seven years isn’t a long time in a landfill planning process and Sullivan County needs to start thinking where its garbage is going when the Monticello landfill closes in 2008, Legislator Rodney Gaebel (RC-5) said last week.

The county landfill is in the third year of a 10-year closure plan and, considering the revenues, Legislators have been talking privately about whether they want to modify it or keep it. “We need to start a dialogue about our part in the garbage business after the landfill is capped,” Gaebel told colleagues at the Public Works Committee on January 4.

He said the options include a scenario similar to Ulster County, where Sullivan would retain its five transfer stations and either contract or haul the wastes to another landfill or other facility.

Gaebel said Sullivan has also had some discussion with Masada, which is building a waste-to-energy plant in Middletown. If Masada took Sullivan wastes, the county would have to separate burnable waste for their use, and would then landfill the resulting ash.

Gaebel said that, under that scenario, Sullivan would receive tipping charges for its incoming garbage, but after burning, the ash would only retain about 40 percent of the original tonnage.

Sullivan could also invoke an earlier plan to take the landfill higher, by acquiring adjoining property to the landfill, building a new cell and overfilling the existing cells.

Gaebel said Sullivan is pretty much committed to a site near the existing landfill if another facility is to be developed in time. “Seven years is not enough time to start in another place, so if you’re thinking about another location, you can scratch that off immediately,” he said.

Duplicating the supporting infrastructure, like the leachate treatment plant, would also make a new site unattractive, he said. “The cost of replacing it would border on the ridiculous,” he said.

On the other hand, Sullivan does have some of the environmental permitting, needed for expansion, completed at the existing site. The county could complete the remaining planning in five years, he said.

The committee did schedule any further discussion.