County trash group report delayed
The document now due on Oct. 31 aims to find ways to better deal with trash disposal
Ulster County Solid Waste Management Improvement Commission members have been given an additional 90 days to complete a report on ways to better deal with trash disposal.
The most recent extension was granted during a county Legislature meeting Tuesday and comes as some commission members believe that even more time is necessary to produce a coherent report.
“I’m not sure why we’re asking for 90 days,” said member Tracey Bartels, a non-enrolled legislator from Gardiner. “I feel like why aren’t we asking for the end of the year.”
Commission reports consist of hundreds of pages of notes and observations from site visits and studies. The documents are in sections supplied from each of the members, each of whom have different techniques for providing their observations, and there is no consistent method for providing the strengths and weaknesses of findings.
The 12-member commission was established by the county Legislature in 2014 to find alternatives to current solid waste disposal operations through the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency. Lawmakers noted that the agency was established in 1991 under a management plan that calls for the “design, permit and construction of a single, new capacity landfill as the primary means of disposing of wastes which cannot be reduced, reused, recycled, or composted.”
Commission members were initially scheduled to have a report completed within a year of its first meeting and subsequently granted two extension that pushed the deadline to Aug. 1. Under the third extension a report is now expected by Oct. 31.
Officials also blame changes in commission membership for the delays, with three people replaced during the past year following elections and expiration of appointed terms.
“Part of the problem that is happening with this commission is that we’re meeting weekly,” Bartels said. “So it’s creating a tremendous amount of fatigue on the people who are showing up every week and we’re working through a tremendous amount of information. We’re 100 pages into an actual report, whittled down from 200-something pages, over 2,000 miles of tours.”
Legislator and commission member Manna Jo Greene, D-New Paltz, considered the 90-day limit appropriate because the report is only intended to be an advisory document.
“I think we all want it to be the best document it can be but I’m afraid if we have until the end of the year time expand or work expands until the time you allow it,” she said.
Options under review include reducing solid waste through composting and recycling, siting a landfill either in the county or working with another county, developing a burn facility, and continuing to transport material.