NRDC, NYPIRG, Sierra Club, EANY: NY's Largest Landfill Must Close in 2025

SENECA FALLS, NY (04/06/2023) (readMedia)-- A letter signed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, NYPIRG, the Sierra Club and Environmental Advocates New York urges the Governor to close Seneca Meadows - the state's largest landfill - on schedule in 2025 per a local ordinance. The letter is co-signed by 428 businesses and 21 coalitions. Citing the dangers to public health and the environment behemoth landfills like Seneca Meadows pose, the letter calls for a comprehensive, statewide zero-waste strategy. It states:

"Now is the time for effective action to begin phasing-out of solid waste landfills in New York and implementing more sustainable trash strategies that will protect neighborhoods from the Finger Lakes to Long Island, especially environmental justice communities that have received more than their fair share of waste-handling and disposal burdens for decades."

Read the full letter attached to this press release and copied below.

Assemblymember Anna Kelles and New York City Councilmember and Chair of the Sanitation Committee Sandy Nurse joined the environmental leaders on Thursday. Assemblymember Kelles carries the PFAS Surface Water Discharge Disclosure Act (S227/A3296) in the Assembly, which would require all facilities permitted to discharge water – like Seneca Meadows – to test for PFAS. Landfills are one of four major sources of PFAS contamination, but there are currently no federal or state regulations requiring PFAS disclosures from all facilities that might be discharging it. This leaves localities in the dark as to where harmful PFAS pollution is coming from, and unable to take meaningful action to protect their drinking water from contamination. The Assemblymember is also circulating a companion letter in the legislature supporting a package of bills that would facilitate New York's transition to a circular economy.

A quarter of the trash in Seneca Meadows is from New York City. Councilmember Nurse has been instrumental in reducing New York City's waste so less of it is passed on to burden other communities like Seneca Falls. She is a champion of the City's composting program that diverted 12.7 million pounds of Queens' organic waste from landfills last fall. The Queens composting program will be completely citywide by October 2024.

Watch the presser here.

"Major players in the environmental movement – NRDC, NYPIRG, Sierra Club and EANY – all agree that Seneca Meadows is too dangerous to stay open. SMI is poisoning our air and drinking water resources, and dumping toxic leachate on vulnerable communities around the state. But this isn't just about SMI: no community deserves to be burdened with the health and environmental impacts of living with a landfill in their backyard. We need Governor Hochul to get serious about transitioning New York toward a true circular economy," said Yvonne Taylor, Vice President of Seneca Lake Guardian.

"For decades, the environmental and public health problems associated with solid waste landfills have been well-known – noxious odors, leaching contaminants, waste-truck traffic and their diesel fumes, and climate-destroying methane emissions. But New York has been moving too slowly to wean localities off of these troublesome facilities. The time has come for state officials to take bold action to reduce our reliance on landfilling and advance a more sustainable circular economy based upon waste prevention, composting and recycling," said Eric A. Goldstein, New York City Environment Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The position of the US Environmental Protection Agency is crystal clear: there is no safe level of exposure to PFOA or PFOS. Any discharge of toxic PFAS into our lakes, rivers, and drinking water sources is an unacceptable risk to human health. We need to know if leachate from landfills like Seneca Meadows contains dangerous carcinogens that are being released back into our most valuable resource. We stand with Seneca Lake Guardians and others urging the closure of the Seneca Meadows landfill on time. We also strongly support the passage of Assemblymember Kelles's PFAS Surface Water Discharge Disclosure Act, so we can finally understand the scale of PFAS pollution statewide," said Rob Hayes, Director of Clean Water with Environmental Advocates NY.

"Waste Connections, a Texas-based company, operates the Seneca Meadows mega-landfill which poses a public nuisance and health risk to the community," said Anne Rabe, NYPIRG Environmental Policy Director. "200 miles east in the city of Rensselaer, they operate another massive dump next to a K-12 school. We call on the Governor and the DEC to uphold the law and deny any permit extension for the Seneca Meadows landfill. This 30 story skyscraper of a garbage dump should be shut down in 2025."

??"New York City is one of the biggest contributors of garbage to the Seneca Meadows landfill, which means we have a responsibility to our upstate neighbors. We must work to close the landfill by 2025 and New York City and State must work to create and implement a comprehensive, statewide zero-waste strategy," said New York City Councilmember and Sanitation Chair Sandy Nurse.

"Solid waste landfills are a short-sighted solution with long-term impacts on our health and our environment. The Seneca Meadows Inc. Landfill literally towers over the landscape, emitting methane gas and noxious odors into the air, as well as leaching PFAS - forever chemicals - into our soil and water. The residents of Waterloo, Seneca Falls and the surrounding areas unfairly bear the burden of massive amounts of waste brought up from New York City, and will continue to do so for decades to come if the closure date is extended and the landfill allowed to expand. We need to close the landfill on schedule in 2025 and work toward long term waste management solutions. I'm committed to legislation that will curb the unsustainable rate of waste production as well as bring transparency to PFAS being discharged into our water supplies," said New York State Assemblymember Anna Kelles.

The letter presses the Governor to reject Waste Connections' – SMI's Texas based, for profit operator – application to expand their operation by another 47 acres and seven stories taller and extend their permits through 2040. The landfill is already the state's largest with a footprint of nearly 400 acres and growing by 6,000 tons of waste daily. Landfills are the third largest source of methane emissions, a greenhouse gas more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide. Crucially, the letter states "New York State will be unlikely to achieve its ambitious, nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goals for reducing climate-altering discharges if state officials continue to give the green light to landfill operations."

Read the full letter below–

Dear Governor Hochul:

The diverse group of environmental, environmental justice, good government and community groups listed above are writing to you today in connection with a critical situation facing residents across the state – the bevy of problems posed by poorly designed, poorly operating solid waste landfills.

More than two dozen landfills were actively operating throughout New York in 2021 -- decades after their troubling environmental and community impacts were well-known. And, despite some progress in cleaning up their operations, many of these landfills present continuing risks to public health, adversely affect local quality-of-life and contribute to the climate crisis. For example, landfills are major sources of localized pollution. They often emit hydrogen sulfide odors, flare landfill gasses into the air, and leach contaminants into groundwater. Convoys of trucks hauling waste into these facilities emit harmful diesel fumes that landfill neighbors breathe. Dust and ash from the landfills themselves drift into adjacent communities. And chronic noise pollution along with visual blight round out the list of landfill's localized burdens.

Landfills are also significant emitters of climate-destroying greenhouse gasses. According to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the waste sector accounts for 12 percent of New York State's greenhouse gas emissions (and that figure doesn't include, among other things, carbon dioxide emissions from out-of-state landfills). Waste deposited in landfills today, the Department concludes "will continue to produce emissions through 2050 and beyond." According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, landfills are the third largest source of methane -- a very potent global warming gas -- in the United States. Thus, New York State will be unlikely to achieve its ambitious, nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goals for reducing climate-altering discharges if state officials continue to give the green light to landfill operations.

The state's largest landfill – Seneca Meadows in the Finger Lakes region – demonstrates this point. Nearly 400 acres in size and growing by 6,000 tons of waste every day (much of it coming all the way from New York City), the landfill is already 280 feet high. Community residents have long complained of odors, dust and ash migration, truck traffic and the hazard posed by objects flying off those overstuffed trucks, and landfill liquids leaching into drinking water sources for New Yorkers across the state. This landfill -- already standing nearly 30 stories tall -- has been scheduled to close at the end of 2025. But now, the Texas-based owners, Waste Connections, are seeking permission from DEC for a 15-year extension, so that the facility could continue to accept waste until at least 2040 and add an additional seven stories to the landfill towering over the region.

Greenhouse gasses aren't the only danger landfills pose to our environment: Landfills are a major source of leachate containing PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals,'' are a family of thousands of chemicals found in many everyday products including clothing, non-stick pans, and fast-food wrapping. Instead of breaking down, these compounds build up in the environment and in our bodies. According to the CDC, exposure to PFAS is linked to harmful health impacts, including cancer, liver damage, and decreased fertility. Once those household items containing PFAS make their way to landfills such as Seneca Meadows, leachate containing PFAS can end up in our drinking water sources. Seneca Meadows landfill produces 75 million gallons of leachate every year which is hauled, untreated, to Buffalo, Watertown, Chittenango, Steuben County and Newark, New Jersey, all of which may or may not be testing for and removing the PFAS.

Now is the time for effective action to begin phasing-out of solid waste landfills in New York and implementing more sustainable trash strategies that will protect neighborhoods from the Finger Lakes to Long Island, especially environmental justice communities that have received more than their fair share of waste-handling and disposal burdens for decades. Specifically, we urge you to work with the Legislature to advance proposals that would prohibit organics from being sent to landfills (or incinerators) by 2028 and phase-out the use of landfills for municipal solid waste beginning in 2030. We also request that you join with Senator May and Assemblymember Kelles in fast-tracking their legislation – the PFAS Surface Water Discharge Disclosure Act (A3296/S227-A) – that would require wastewater treatment plant operators to annually disclose levels of PFAS in their discharges and mandate that industrial waste dischargers disclose any discharges of PFAS into wastewater plants or state surface or groundwaters. Finally, consistent with the objectives of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and current solid waste laws and goals, we urge your administration to limit future landfill permit requests that would extend landfill operations beyond 2030.

Sincerely,

ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATES OF NEW YORK

NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL

NEW YORK PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP

SIERRA CLUB, ATLANTIC CHAPTER

SENECA LAKE GUARDIAN

Background

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 produces up to 200,000 gallons of polluted leachate – formed when rainwater filters through waste – per day. A quarter of the landfill – which stands at nearly 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., spent around $200,000 in 2021 promoting 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. Landfills are one of four major sources of PFAS, and landfills account for 17 percent of total methane emissions.

SMI is located two miles from Cayuga-Seneca Canal and three miles from every school in Seneca Falls and Waterloo, potentially 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.

The "PFAS Surface Water Discharge Disclosure Act" – introduced by Assemblymember Kelles and Senator May last year – would require annual testing for all facilities permitted to discharge water. There are no federal or state regulations currently requiring PFAS disclosures from all facilities that might be discharging it.

A recent Rockefeller Institute policy brief showed that New York is one of nine states that falls well short of the EPA guidance on enforceable drinking water standards for PFAS.

DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos recently tweeted about his agency's intentions to "better serve disadvantaged communities all across New York," which should include SMI. According to the draft criteria of the Climate Justice Working Group – established by the Climate Act – there are five disadvantaged communities in Seneca County.

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.