Landfill held hostage for lawyers fees

By DAVID HULSE

MONTICELLO, NY — Sullivan County’s refusal to pay $20,000 towards an environmental group’s costs for petitioning against the landfill resulted in the apparent failure of the most recent negotiations on the cell six permit, the group’s attorney said Tuesday.

Gary Abraham, the Allegany, NY attorney representing Special Protection for the Environment of the County of Sullivan (SPECS) said the request was made during negotiations and refused by Sullivan County Attorney Sam Yasgur. Abraham said the technical assistance grant was an accepted tool in “environmental justice law,” for people without means to question environmental issues. “It’s not a settlement, it’s a recognition of an environmental injustice,” he said.

Abraham said negotiations are continuing, but failing a settlement within seven days, he anticipated that the resolution process would continue through the complete Department of Environmental Conservation’s resolution process.

That process could take a minimum of another 60 days and force the county to miss this year’s construction season. County officials, who already are agreeing to cut garbage imports because of new space limitations, say the new cell will take two construction seasons to complete and remaining cell five space cannot be stretched beyond that time frame.

Yasgur said the county had reached agreements with all parties except SPECS. Other than saying that there was one unsettled, “non-operational” area of disagreement remaining with SPECS, Yasgur would not comment on specifics as he reported before the Public Works Committee of the County Legislature on Tuesday.

However, after learning of Abraham’s comments to The River Reporter, Yasgur released an eight-page summary letter he had written Abraham on May 5 regarding the negotiations, to let county “citizens know what transpired and why the negotiations failed.”

In a two-page summary of that letter, Yasgur wrote that the negotiations failed because of “a demand from SPECS that the county pay SPECS $20,000, as a so-called technical assistance grant. It was admitted by [Abraham] that a portion of the $20,000 would be used to pay his legal fee, though he did not say what portion.”

Yasgur went on to say that all the other parties’ attorneys agreed that it “would be irresponsible for County Legislators to use tax dollars to pay the legal fees of a group dedicated to closing a county facility on which all County rsidents depend.”

Following the meeting, Legislative Chair Chris Cunningham said “intense negotiations,” would be continuing throughout the week to try to reach a resolution, but Yasgur concluded that Abraham’s disclosure to the press “would increase the difficulty of conducting any dialogue.” Cunningham would not confirm or deny that SPECS had made any monetary agreements. “We’re going to be looking at a lot of issues during the week,” he said.

DEC attorney Jonah Triebwasser said he would not comment on the terms of an ongoing negotiation. “I consider it very inappropriate for any counsel [to do that],” he said.

However, in a hypothetical case, he said New York environmental law does not have any provisions for technical assistance grants. “That would be between a county and the group,” he said.

Triebwasser went on to say that he did not feel that legal counsel comes under the realm of expert technical assistance that a grant would fund. “That’s usually for engineers, biologists and lab work,” he said.

All the other parties identified at the recent “issues conference” confirmed that they were prepared to agree to a settlement. Lumberland Supervisor John LiGreci said SPECS “tried to make an end run, I was a little disappointed. We agreed to reductions for cell six. All of a sudden, SPECS wanted to be reimbursed for attorneys fees or they wouldn’t agree.”

“We’re were all really trying to bend over backwards to do the right thing… It’s sad, the right thing was being done and the SPECS group reneged on a very fair agreement,” he said.

Thompson Supervisor Tony Cellini said that the town and village are ready. “The longer it goes on, the more it costs everyone in lawyers’ fees,” he said.

Saying the county has no history of it, Abraham was also skeptical of the county’s reliability in being responsible landfill managers should the new permit be approved. He charged that the county has been annually taking in half-again the amount of tonnage, beyond its permitted 200,000 tons and that DEC reports of odor violations have continued regularly since a consent order last fall, when the county agreed to correct them.

During the Public Works Committee meeting Yasgur reported that the DEC landfill monitor, under oath, testified that county has made and “outstanding effort” and “great strides” in terms of its landfill operation.

Public Works Committee Chair Kathy LaBuda said “to say that we’re not addressing these problems is an absolute lie.”

Yasgur said that following his receipt of the hearing transcript, Administrative Law Judge Ed Buhrmaster will have 30 days to reach a decision. “I believe the SPECS petition will be dismissed,” he added.