Officials laugh at flow control concerns
TOWN OF ULSTER >> Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency officials have responded with laughter to Wawarsing Supervisor Leonard Distel’s contentions that flow control could be challenged in court.
The issue was raised during a meeting Wednesday, when agency board member Charles Landi asked what should be done about the recent comments.
Agency attorney Kenneth Gilligan promptly responded: “We’re going to sign the (fiveyear service) contract that he signed.”
The statement immediately drew laughs from other board members, who did not comment on whether they felt there was a real threat that litigation would actually move forward.
“We’re going to not say a word and sign the contract,” said Gilligan, adding the board would “turn the other cheek” in response to objections over agency authority.
County lawmakers in December 2012 voted 17-5 to enact regulations that gave Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency authority to penalize haulers and municipalities that do not bring solid waste to agency facilities. Haulers have responded by raising rates to customers while municipal officials have declined to challenge the regulations that have prevented them from finding less expensive disposal options that could save money for taxpayers.
The agency in January 2015 set tipping fees at $103 per ton to towns and villages in Ulster County, with the amount representing a 10.75 percent increase of $10 if the agency picked up the waste and a 19.77 percent increase of $17 if the municipality itself brought solid waste to the agency facilities.
Municipalities were also given the choice of signing a five-year service contract containing a 10-year obligation to pay for new containers, closing the municipal transfer stations, or buy equipment themselves to haul solid waste to agency facilities. The agency this week agreed to contracts with 14 of 19 municipalities that were previously under long-term agreements.
Distel earlier this month suggested that municipalities could each contribute toward hiring an attorney to file a lawsuit.
“If every town would thrown in $5,000 ... to hire a fancy lawyer out of New York City for $100,000 and fight flow control, I think you’d win,” he said. “For flow control to be legal you have to have a landfill and we haven’t got one.”
Distel, during a telephone interview Friday, said the agency board members apparently have little regard for the impact that increased costs under the contracts will have on Wawarsing taxpayers.
“With all the extra charges they’re giving us and going into the 2016 budget we have to come up with a way to come under the (state) tax cap,” he said.
“Towns don’t have that extra $5,000 to fight flow control and (agency officials) know that and they put you in a corner,” Distel said. “They can laugh all they want if they believe it’s a joke. Well, I don’t believe it’s a joke, I take it seriously because taxpayers have to foot the bill. They (agency officials) make mistakes and town of Wawarsing residents have to pick up the cost.”
Flow control regulations have been the subject of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, with the first in 1994 saying that haulers could not be forced by the town of Clarkstown to bring solid waste to a designated private landfill. The second in 2007 stated that haulers could be required to bring solid waste to a landfill owned and operated by Oneida and Herkimer counties.
Justice John Roberts noted that the 2007 decision did not overturn the 1994 decision because the town of Clarkstown was at the time showing favoritism toward a particular private landfill.
“The only salient difference is that the laws at issue here require haulers to bring waste to facilities owned and operated by a state-created public benefit corporation,” he wrote.
Landi contends the second the Supreme Court decision could be used to apply to the Ulster County flow control law.
“Is (Distel) ready to take it back to the Supreme Court?” he said. “That’s a very costly thing to do.”
Landi added that Wawarsing has a closed landfill that could be returned to use as a countyowned facility.
“A lot of people are of the opinion it was shut down prematurely and that there might be some room to reopen it,” he said. “So if Distel is talking like this maybe we should come back and say to him, ‘okay guy, you want to do this thing, let’s reopen your landfill.’ ”
Ulster County lawmakers in 2012 acknowledged that flow control regulations were adopted because the agency was reported to have between $23 million and $30 million in longterm debt. By agreeing to flow control, they were told that the agency would
not be provided with subsidies forecast to exceed $2 million annually from the county budget. The county budget in 2013 included $2.47 million as a net service fee based on 2012 operating shortfalls in the agency budget. Officials said the higher tipping fees and reduction in long term debt have given the agency a better financial position. Some board members suggested the improvement
could result in lower disposal charges to customers, but Chairman Leon Smith was concerned county lawmakers might ask to be reimbursed for about $35 million in subsidies given to the agency since it was chartered in 1987.
“Don’t we all forget one thing: The county can request we pay back the net service fee that they paid us all these years,” he said.