Upstate New Yorkers skeptical of NYC trash plan

An informational meeting about a trash-hauling-by-rail proposal brought out a roomful of people with concerns about the plan to ship New York City solid waste by rail to a landfill in upstate New York.

An early January 2016 meeting at a library in Seneca Falls, New York, attracted as many as 100 people, many with pointed questions about the proposal, according to an online report  by the Finger Lakes Times.

The proposed contract would allow the Seneca Meadows Landfill, operated by Canada-based Progressive Waste Solutions, to accept municipal solid waste (MSW) from New York City for 20 years with an option for 10 more years beyond that.

Among the concerns expressed by meeting attendees were that:

• adding a rail transloading facility would allow the landfill to accept MSW from even farther away than New York City;
• the landfill’s permit indicates it has enough airspace to operate only until 2023 at its current 6,000 tons per day permit limit—well before the contract expires; and
• the town of Seneca Falls, which already receives one-third of its revenue from landfill tip fees, would become even more dependent upon landfilling activities to fund itself.

Other attendees complained of odors emanating from the landfill and the concern that such nuisances would worsen with increased activity.

A meeting attendee who said she looked at the landfill’s current permit found that Seneca County contributes just 2.6 percent of the MSW heading into the landfill, while the Queens borough of New York and Nassau County on Long Island combine to send 27 percent of inbound volume.

The value of the contract could be as much as $3.3 billion, but three state legislators from Seneca County have written a letter claiming initial opposition to the deal because “there has been very little transparency or public discussion on this project,” according to the Finger Lakes Times.