Agency promises more public review of waste plan
The Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency says changes to a proposed 10-year solid waste management plan will undergo further public review before the plan is sent to the state and the returned for county Legislature approval.
Members of the agency board offered the assurance at a meeting Monday during a half-hour back-andforth with recycling advocate Shabazz Jackson and county Legislator Manna Jo Greene over interpretations of recent public comments.
“It just seems to me that some of those comments were significant and that the agency board should be giving [consulting firm] Cornerstone [Engineering] some direction rather than just simply letting them process it,” said Greene, DRosendale.
Greene was the only person to comment during a November public hearing about the solid waste plan. At that time, she lauded the agency for putting an emphasis on keeping solid waste out of landfills. she noted this week, however, that written comments submitted by county legislators who had been appointed to an ad hoc committee on waste disposal have yet to be discussed by Resource Recovery Agency board members.
“I guess I expected to hear some conversation about the comments ... and not just sending them to Cornerstone and have them create the responses,” Greene said.
Lawmakers on the ad hoc committee discussed during a meeting last summer they types of technology that should be reviewed to reduce the waste stream.
“I think the most specific recommendation ... was the idea of considering both biomass ... and municipal solid waste composting,” Greene said.
Resource Recovery Agency board Chairman Fred Wadnola said it was appropriate to have Cornerstone review the comments for possible changes to the solid waste management plan before board members discuss whether to adopt the recommendations. He noted that board members have visited several types of solid waste processing facilities and have listened to presentations from companies that offer alternatives to landfills.
“We have been very proactive ... looking at different possibilities for processing different things,” Wadnola said.
Wadnola said there also was a visit to look at a “prospective landfill,” but he did not name the location.
The Resource Recovery Agency currently hauls trash collected in Ulster County to the Seneca Meadows landfill, between Rochester and Syracuse, but that site is expected to close in January 2025.
Jackson, who regularly attends agency board meetings, questioned the use of some cost figures in the draft plan and whether his recommendations were being taken seriously. He was particularly concerned that board members would make decisions based on a consultant’s estimates about composting without seeking information about lower-cost options.
Agency board members were to submit their own comments to the consultants this week, and a revised draft is to be returned to the agency by the end of February.