Trash agency mulls solid waste management plan

Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency board members are struggling to determine where they stand with the solid waste management plan developed by predecessors and how to develop a unified way to move the agency forward.

Board member James Gordon raised questions about the status during a meeting last week, saying that he simply wanted an update on progress made toward long-term goals approved over a year ago.

“I know that there’s an update due next year but in the interim, because we have a new executive director and we’re going to try to decide what options make sense, I would like to get some sort of answers about where we are in terms of getting those answers,” he said.

Among the questions posed by Gordon were whether it would be possible to send solid waste to landfill by train and whether there are still efforts being made to work with other counties. Administrators twice responded by describing the process, and Gordon attempted to simplify the request but was ultimately unsuccessful in getting a clear answer.

“I’m just trying to find out where we are in the process,” he said.

Executive Director Greg Ollivier, who was hired last month, said he would review the steps that have been taken to review options and report to the board.

“These are things that I have got to start working on,” he said, adding that “I don’t think on any of these things that you’re going to find … within the last year there has been any real hard studies done.”

Board member Margot Becker was frustrated by the agency’s slow movement in exploring solid waste options.

“One of the things that happen is that…there’s all this discussion, then nothing happens, then years go by, then things go stale,” she said.

Board member Tom Kancades noted that even if there is solid waste disposal proposed by the agency, it becomes a matter of convincing elected officials that the recommendation should move forward.

“In essence, county legislatures within themselves are a herd of cats,” he said.

Kancades added that elected officials do not have the experience in the solid waste industry that makes them qualified to discuss disposal options.

“The central challenge for the board is a relationship with the Legislature that has got our hands tied for anything big that we want to do,” he said.

Kancades said board members are at the “receiv

ing end of a bunch of people that want to plan solid waste for us” without considering how the agency operates.

“Our political decisionmakers have not accounted for the actual work of this agency,” he said. “They don’t understand it, they think it’s magical, they’re happy to forget about it on a daily basis, and that’s the way of the world relative to this entire topic.”