Town presses ahead in court over dumping
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. » The town has filed formal charges of illegal dumping against the owners of the property at 10 Church Road in the hamlet of Shady and the embattled Saugerties businessman who dumped contaminated debris there.
Woodstock Supervisor Bill McKenna said Tuesday that paperwork has been filed in Town Court regarding the charges against property owners Gina and Vincent Conigliaro and against Joseph Karolys of Saugerties.
“Basically they violated the [town’s] Solid Waste Law ... which prohibits dumping construction debris,” he said.
McKenna said the charges state the amount of material deposited on the Shady property was “no less than 200 dump truck loads of demolition debris.”
The supervisor said the truck commonly used by Karolys holds between 11 and 13 yards of material, which would put the amount of material dumped in Shady at up to 2,600 yards.
Karolys reportedly began bringing debris to the site in December 2019. McKenna became aware of it in January 2020, at which point he notified the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The DEC ultimately concluded the debris contained asphalt, concrete, glass, brick, wood and material identified as coal/slag/ash.
Heavy rain last June washed away layers of soil that covered the materials. The Town Board subsequently agreed to take action against the Conigliaros, but neighbors of the Church Road site b3ecame impatient with the slow pace at which the matter was being handled.
Vincent Conigliaro has acknowledged the material came from Karolys, who has been under state investigation over materials brought to his processing facility on Route 212 in Saugerties and then taken to two nearby landfills that he owns. The DEC has found contamination at those sites similar to that found at the Shady location.
The court action, if successful, would compel the Conigliaros to remove the contaminated debris. If they don’t, the town could carry out the work and add the cost, which McKenna has said could be as high as $200,000, to the couple’s property tax bill.
If the Conigliaros can’t pay the bill, the supervisor has said, Ulster County would have to reimburse Woodstock in order “make the town whole.”
Karolys also is in hot water in the town of Kingston for leaving a 1.5-mile trail of dirt and debris on Sawkill Road and other roads last November while hauling it to a private property on East Ridge Drive.
Town officials want Karolys to cover the Highway Department’s cost of cleaning up the mess.