EYES ON THE RIVER
Officials worry about potential impact of the landfill expansion
WATERFORD, N.Y. » Environmental watchdog group Riverkeeper on Tuesday formally joined with opponents of the plan to expand the town of Colonie landfill in a traveling press conference that moved from the banks of the Mohawk River on to the river itself.
Riverkeeper staff, in partnership with SUNY Cobleskill, collected samples of river water near the landfill on Monday and will soon send them out to be tested for contaminants. Testing of the Mohawk River near the landfill has long been a request of residents living across from the landfill in Halfmoon as well as the town’s administration and that of the town of Waterford.
The press conference was held near Lock 6 of the barge Canal in Waterford, and continued on the Riverkeeper patrol boat as it moved up and back to the Crescent Bridge.
Riverkeeper patrol boat captain and vice president of advocacy John Lipscomb said one of the organization’s roles is to assist and backup river communities like Waterford and Halfmoon on behalf of the Mohawk River.
“To put this in perspective: there is no active landfill anywhere in our 350-mile wide patrol range,” he said. “Our position is the only appropriate action is closure and remediation. Expansion is out of the question. Knowledge is power. You can get stuff done with data. As the DEC process
"To put this in perspective: there is no active landfill anywhere in our 350-mile wide patrol range. Our position is the only appropriate action is closure and remediation. Expansion is out of the question." — Riverkeeper patrol boat captain and vice president of advocacy John Lipscomb
roles out, we’ll be prepared to do whatever is necessary to prevent the expansion of this landfill.”
The town of Colonie is the owner of the Route 9 landfill and holds the landfill permit. It is operated by Capital Region Landfills, Inc. through its company, Waste Connections. The town is requesting DEC approve its requested plan to expand the operation.
The press conference gave Halfmoon Supervisor Kevin Tollisen and Waterford Supervisor John Lawler a chance to once again state their reasons for opposing any expansion, and vividly point out how large the expansion would be and the nearness of homes. Both were present, and both went on the river in the Riverkeeper boat.
“We’ve gone to DEC, we’ve submitted our legal information, we’ve submitted our engineering reports and we have tremendous concerns about the expansion of this landfill,” Tollisen said. “Today is a great opportunity to get a little bit different view of the landfill. Not only is it the visual impact and smelling the orders but today we’ll see the view from the river and the visual impact this expansion will make.”
The Halfmoon supervisor expressed a concern with plans that are expected to add 100 feet to the height of the existing mound of garbage, and said that he, as well as others, feels there are alternatives to expansion that have not been explored fully.
“We believe there are other places where this garbage can go and we feel it’s time for this landfill to close and time for DEC to do the right thing here and make the right decision,” Tollisen said.
Lawler took a historical perspective and said the landfill has had its time of serving the greater Capital Region and that when its permit runs out in 2017 it should be closed for good.
“We’ve submitted hundreds of pages of information stating not only our concerns but concerns we feel DEC should have in terms of this proposed expansion,” he said. “If this was an application for a new landfill it would never survive the first round of review. Today in New York you cannot construct a landfill about 100 feet, and in some case less than that, near a body of water like the Mohawk River.”
Lawler asked that people consider the millions of dollars spent in the last 50 years to clean up the Hudson River and then think about expanding a landfill so close to its major tributary.
“This is a massive expansion,” he said. “It will add 12 million tons of garbage and 100 vertical feet to the landfill. Right now the capacity is six million tons, so this will basically triple the capacity and double its size.”
Additionally, Lawler said the proposed expansion will go on top of what DEC has said is an inactive toxic landfill.
“This application would pile hundreds of tons of waste on top of an unlined toxic landfill,” he said. “There’s been no testing by DEC and no required testing by the applicant so we’re going to go ahead and draw samples and do testing. We believe DEC has an obligation to reject this application. It fails on so many different levels.”
Concerned Halfmoon citizen Frank Hartley, a retired engineer, was on the boat also. He said the Freedom of Information Act has been used to find out what’s in the Mohawk River near the landfill but found no sampling had been done there.
“They have monitoring programs for wells on site and for stormwater outflow, but no associated monitoring of the river,” he said. “When we filed for that information with DEC they said there’s never been a problem.”