ICYMI: State's Largest Landfill Playing Dirty Politics With New Yorkers' Right to Clean Air, Water

SENECA FALLS, NY (09/08/2022) (readMedia)-- Earlier this week, the Times-Union published an Op-Ed written by Geneva City Councilor Ken Camera and former Seneca Falls Town Board Member Doug Avery on how a Texas-based company called Waste Connections has bought off local elected officials to ensure support for their effort to expand what is already the State's largest landfill in Seneca Falls, called "Seneca Meadows," clocking in at about 30 stories high. The landfill is permitted to accept 6,000 tons of waste and produce up to 200,000 gallons of polluted leachate – formed when rainwater filters through waste – per day.

Waste Connections contributed around $280,000 in 2021 to pro-landfill candidates who won seats in Town Board and County races and are now supporting the landfill's proposed seven-story expansion, which would keep the landfill operating past its current 2025 closure date.

The text of the Op-Ed is below:

Commentary: Shut down the Seneca Meadows landfill

By Ken Camera and Doug Avery

In the last few years, New York has made great strides to enact some of the strongest environmental legislation in the nation to take action against climate change. That landmark legislation from 2019 - the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act - was reinforced last November when 70 percent of New Yorkers voted to add "the right of each person to clean air, clean water and a healthful environment" to our state constitution. But, so far, New York is falling short of meeting the goals outlined by the CLCPA: to achieve 100 percent zero-emission electricity by 2040 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at least 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

New York needs to get serious about achieving its climate goals, and one major step toward meeting those goals would be denying the permit extension for Seneca Meadows landfill. Residents of Seneca Falls - home to both the birthplace of women's rights and the landfill - are dumped on regularly by a Texas-based company called Waste Connections, which wants to extend their permits to operate beyond their 2025 closure date and expand the 30-story skyscraper of garbage by another seven stories. Based on the latest available information, expanding the landfill could produce over 1 billion pounds of greenhouse gasses per year over the next 15 years even if it is operated properly. Considering that the landfill arguably has not yet been operated properly, it's a safe bet that estimate will be far exceeded.

Residents are tired of the constant odor, exposure to respiratory illnesses and other dangers of living near a landfill. But, if you tuned into a Seneca Falls Town Board meeting, you'd see that elected representatives seem to live in an entirely different reality. And that's because they've been bought off. In the last campaign, Waste Connections funneled more than $200,000 in campaign contributions to two local candidates who agreed to support expansion in the last election. These are seats that are traditionally won with little more than $1,000. It's also how Doug, unfortunately, lost his seat and ability to provide a check on this out-of-state company's growing power in Seneca Falls.

Waste Connections considers this a fait accompli, that voters already decided on the landfill expansion in the last election, as though it were anything resembling a fair fight. This is money in politics at its worst: that a company in Texas can essentially hold a town in New York hostage, forcing us to continue suffering the economic impacts and health hazards of living next to a landfill. And if the town that inspired the quintessential Americana town of Bedford Falls for the classic film "It's a Wonderful Life" doesn't have a shot at fair elections, how does anyone?

Gov. Kathy Hochul has made running a clean administration a priority, declaring on her first day in office a commitment to fighting corruption and serving the highest interests of democracy. She can fulfill that promise now, by instructing her Department of Environmental Conservation to honor the original closure date of 2025 and refuse this climate-killing expansion.

We are not asking for the state to do something it hasn't already done. The governor already took bold climate action earlier this year by denying the renewal of the crypto mining permit that was destroying the natural resources of the Finger Lakes. Denying the expansion is baked into the course of action outlined by the CLCPA and the amendment to the state constitution. It is the will of the people of New York who do not need or want Texas interests dictating policy in our backyard. If we wouldn't allow the Lone Star state to extend their views on abortion or guns over us, why let them determine the very air and water we breathe and drink?

We are asking for Hochul to stand up for this region and enforce the policies and guidelines for waste management that protect the entire state. Waste Connections, along with other out-of-state industries operating in New York, are not just conflicting with the above-cited climate legislation; many are not even abiding by their current permits and regulations.

We all swore by a duty to serve our fellow New Yorkers when we ran for office, and the governor must fulfill that duty by directing the DEC to shut down a landfill that's poisoning the air of the region and drinking water of communities across the state.

Ken Camera is a Geneva city councilor. Doug Avery is a former Seneca Falls town board member.

Background

Seneca Meadows Inc. Landfill

The Seneca Meadows landfill, located in Seneca Falls, the birthplace of American Women's Rights, is the largest of 27 landfills in New York State. It is permitted to accept 6,000 tons of waste and produce up to 200,000 gallons of polluted leachate – formed when rainwater filters through waste – per day. A quarter of the landfill – which stands at 30 stories tall – is trash from NYC, followed by four other states.

Seneca Meadows was previously required to stop receiving waste and halt operations by December 31, 2025. However, Waste Connections, the Texas based parent company of Seneca Meadows Inc., contributed around $280,000 in 2021 to pro-landfill candidates who won seats in Town Board and County races and are now supporting the Valley Infill, SMI's planned seven-story high expansion. The expansion would keep the landfill operating through 2040 with allowable dumping on the Valley Infill (the former toxic Tantalo superfund site), rising another 70 feet into the viewscape. Even with the planned closure in 2025, the mountain of garbage promises years of problems and remediation that could take generations to mitigate.

Leachate and wastewater runoff from the landfill contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which can cause widespread contamination of drinking water and harmful health impacts. Seneca Meadows produces 75 million gallons of leachate each year which is distributed not just to Seneca Falls but also to Buffalo, Watertown, Chittenango, and Steuben County, contaminating drinking water across the state.

SMI is located two miles from Cayuga-Seneca Canal and three miles from every school in Seneca Falls and Waterloo, exposing students to airborne particulates and unseen gasses known to contribute to respiratory illness, asthma, and migraine headaches. The landfill cannot process all of the methane that is generated and is forced to burn almost a billion cubic feet per year in 5 flares, contributing to climate change.

SMI is harming the Finger Lakes' natural resources that have led to the region being under consideration for a National Heritage Area Designation, and which the $3 billion, 60,000-employee wine and agritourism economy relies on. The odor from the landfill can be smelled from miles away, including at Thruway exit 41, the northern gateway to the Finger Lakes. Large, sustainable employers in the area are finding it difficult to recruit and retain employees, because nobody wants to raise a family near a dangerous landfill.

SMI's expansion is also at odds with the overwhelmingly popular amendment to the New York state constitution passed last year, which guarantees every New Yorker the right to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment.

About Seneca Lake Guardian

Seneca Lake Guardian is a New York State Not-for-Profit Corporation with 501(c)(3) and is dedicated to preserving and protecting the health of the Finger Lakes, its residents and visitors, its rural community character, and its agricultural and tourist related businesses through public education, citizen participation, engagement with decision makers, and networking with like-minded organizations.