County looking for landfill operators

Expansion permit not expected until 2009

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — With the landfill expansion permit not expected until sometime in 2009, and with growing uncertainty about the future of the facility, the county is looking for proposals regarding the future of the county’s solid waste program.

On July 10, Sullivan County Manager David Fanslau issued a press release saying the county is seeking request for proposals (RFP) for three different options: the sale of the county landfill, the lease and 25-year operation of the landfill and the exportation of the county’s solid waste outside the county.

Perhaps the RFP regarding exportation of garbage is most important, because it is clear now that for some amount of time, probably a couple of years, garbage will have to be transported out of the county because the current landfill will be full and the expansion will not be open.

The release came after a meeting of the Department of Public Works, in which Fanslau said several companies have already expressed interest. “There are 14 companies that are interested in exportation, nine in the sale of the assets and nine or 10 that are interested in leasing the assets,” he said.

The deadline for the submission of proposals is August 22.

At the same meeting, two haulers chastised lawmakers for the operation of the landfill.

Paul Walsh, owner of Thompson Sanitation, and Shirley Felder-Morton, president of Sullivan County First Recycling, said that the influx of people to the county, which boosts the population from 76,000 to over 300,000, combined with the long Fourth of July holiday weekend and a broken scale at the landfill, led to long waits for truck drivers and delayed pickups of trash.

Lawmaker Alan Sorensen said as long as the county was in the landfill business, it should be run like a business.

County chair Jonathan Rouis responded by saying that the county runs the landfill as a service to the community, not as a business.

As if to underscore the point, Fanslau said that the cost of processing a ton of waste at the landfill is $95, while the charge to the customer is only $75. So the county is losing money with every ton of trash accepted.

In researching the landfill and garbage option, county attorney Sam Yasgur said that the New York counties Herkimer and Oneida have one of the best systems; they have a law that requires all solid wastes to be handled at county facilities, and they went through a 10-year process to open a new landfill.

Janet Newberg, a resident who has been active in the effort to stop the expansion, countered that the Herkimer landfill is not located in the middle of a population center, as is the case with Sullivan County.

On the matter of the ongoing permit hearings, the last ones are scheduled for early August. Although county officials expect to have a final decision on the permits sometime next year, the residents of Mountain Lodge Estates, who have been funding a legal fight against the expansion, have promised to appeal the decision if the permit is granted, which could drag out the process even longer.

Further, once the DEC appeal is exhausted, the group has said it may sue the county in civil court.

Effy Steigman, a spokesman for the group, has repeatedly said its strategy is to stall as long as possible, thereby make it financially unattractive to expand the landfill. Some who follow the matter believe the tactic is working. [For more on this issue, see My View on page 6].