Landfill permit remains unresolved

Opposition lawyer thanks legislature

By FRITZ MAYER

ALBANY, NY — With some county officials declaring the landfill expansion is dead, it might be a moot question as to whether the permits for the phase two expansion will ever be granted. But the matter is technically still under consideration in Albany.

Administrative law judge Edward Buhrmaster is overdue in issuing a decision on the matter, but when and if it comes, the conditions for the permit are likely to include provisions that would add to the already prohibitive cost of the expansion.

One likely provision has to do with noise from the operation of the landfill. The only way Sullivan County could meet the noise level requirements of the Department of Environmental Conservation would be to erect a huge berm around the area of the expansion where waste could be deposited. This berm would be 10 feet high, an astounding 70 feet wide at the base, and 10 feet wide at the top. On top of the berm, a temporary sound wall would be constructed.

After one working area is filled, a new berm would be built around the next working area, and heavy machinery would be used to move the sound wall from the old berm to the new one. Even with this elaborate scheme, the sound emitted at the site of Mountain Lodge Estates (MLE), a community that has been vigorously fighting the expansion, would be just under the wire as far as limiting noise, and would leave no room for error on the part of the landfill operator.

When Gary Abraham, the lawyer who represents Mountain Lodge Estates and who previously represented Special Protection for the Environment of the County of Sullivan (SPECS) when that group was spearheading the fight, heard about the county’s moves to abandon the pursuit of the expansion in favor of enhanced recycling and exportation, he wrote in an email: “Perhaps, the prospect of a much costlier landfill than the county planned on has made them plan for an alternative to the Phase II expansion. Perhaps, it was the county’s single-digit percentage recycling rate, which SPECS has long criticized and the Department of Environmental Conservation has insisted be significantly improved… perhaps it is the combination of these things.”

Abraham continued, “If the county has truly abandoned phase two, MLE can only congratulate the legislators for doing the right thing. MLE includes over 60 homes paying property taxes and fees to the county and Monticello to use municipal water. MLE has always been a good neighbor and looks forward to a long future across the woods from the county landfill.”