News
Dear PSPA Members and Friends,
Listed below is a series of updates regarding activities on your behalf to address current Waste Management plans to expand the High Acres Landfill.
But first a reminder....in June, Town Supervisor Jim Smith attempted to quell opposition to the landfill expansion with his press release announcing Waste Management's intentions to pull the vertical expansion request from the town.
Some members and neighbors think the vertical portion of the landfill expansion proposal ended with that announcement. This is not the case!
The press release merely served to obscure the facts and to diminish the matter in the public conscience of the town.
This is an election year, and such an announcement is likely a political maneuver to diminish publicity until after the election. The expansion of the landfill remains a real possibility until such time as Waste Management's request of the DEC is pulled or denied!
News items:
1. We have met with Jim Smith to further discuss our concerns and ideas and to give him an opportunity to express his position on the landfill expansion and/or our ideas. He has moved from active lobbying for the expansion in May to a completely non-responsive position. He simply stated that he has to wait for the Conservation Board review prior to making any decisions. He could not say when this review will be complete.
The PSPA's position is that this is an unacceptable response, given that there are actions he can take in the short term to address at least two goals: the inception of a Citizens Advisory Board common to many landfill host communities, and a revision to the host community benefits Agreement better aligned with the benefits and requirements of other host communities.
Mr Smith's clearly demonstrated political gamesmanship continues to reinforce our belief that landfill expansion in Perinton remains likely without the efforts of our organization. We will continue to push him to respond to our issues.
2. We will soon meet with local Democratic leaders and candidates who have expressed concerns about the landfill and an interest in joining us to work towards our goals. As we are non-partisan, we seek to reach out to anyone willing to help us achieve our goals. We will reach out to Perinton Republican leaders as well, who have to this point not reached out to the PSPA.
3. We continue to meet with Waste Management to address current concerns, such as odor, visible trash, and truck traffic. While the dialog has been cordial, there have been no actions on Waste Management's part to withdraw its vertical expansion plan from the DEC. Waste Management officials reneged on a verbal commitment to provide us with Host Community Agreements they have with other landfill communities. We also requested a better complaint system than calling their community relations spokesperson on her cell phone and they have not yet created a better complaint process.
4. On the advice of counsel, we have placed a "stay" on our lawsuit against DEC and Waste Management because there has been no issuance of a permit as of yet. If DEC issues the permit for the expansion, we will move ahead with the lawsuit. We believe that DEC has NOT issued a permit because of the legal action we took in June.
5. We spoke against the landfill expansion at the latest Macedon public hearing, but Macedon went on to approve the eastward expansion of the landfill. However, they had the foresight to pass a law that no expansion be allowed in the absence of property value protection, and to secure a number of benefits for their residents. Perinton?s current host community benefits agreement pales in comparison.
6. Our efforts to secure better terms and a better future landfill plan for our community continue, but they come at great personal cost in time and dollars. We urgently need those who have not made a pledge of their time and financial support for our work on everyone's behalf to please do so, and we call on all who have not honored their pledges to do so at this time.
We are not professional lobbyists and we all have full time lives; the PSPA can only sustain itself through the generous support of like-minded members. The alternative is that the current Waste Management-friendly administration, which features Waste Management's leading expansion consultant on its Conservation Board, will surely pass a short-sighted plan, and we will remain saddled with weak host community benefits.
We have paid two bills representing half our costs for legal services, but we are now in need of funds to pay the next installment. Our cause needs your financial support. Please give generously. Checks should be written to PSPA in care of Heidi Kotla, 12 Piping Rock Run, Fpt. Heidi will then send you a receipt for your tax-deductible donation.
We believe that we CAN make some progress on these issues prior to November's election with your support. We are working diligently and would welcome any of you to help by attending meetings, handing out flyers, etc. as we try to effect change. Please e-mail me at lhc223@frontiernet.net if you can become more involved.
Sincerely,
Laurie Collins
PSPA President
Let's work together to Preserve Scenic Perinton!
(*Note, full unedited version)
On behalf of the members of the Preserve Scenic Perinton Alliance, Inc. (PSPA) we commend the editors of the Perinton-Fairport Post for weighing in on the proposed expansion of the High Acres Landfill (Don’t Trash the Future; Act Now, June 28, 2007).
Regrettably, Messenger Post editors
missed the mark in representing the whole story and position of the PSPA. Much to our
chagrin, there also was no mention of the Town of Perinton’s role in encouraging Waste
Management’s pursuit of the expansion in the first place, it’s understated approach over
two years to encouraging community involvement and, perhaps most egregiously, its
sub-par negotiation of a modern and more aggressive Host Community Benefit Agreement
for all in Perinton, particularly those of us who live with the landfill on a daily
basis.
Implying that the message of the PSPA
is limited to NIMBY (“Not in My Back Yard”) sentiments sells short the mission and good
intentions of the people of the PSPA. Contrary to the editors assertion, many members
have willingly lived with the landfill in their front, back or side yards for over thirty
years, and many have recently built high-value homes in the vicinity of the landfill;
homes typically assessed at over twice the Perinton average home value of $175,000.
NIMBY’s elsewhere in the country are
typically opposed to the new construction of a new landfill. We already have one. In fact
we made a “Yes, in My Back Yard” decision long ago, with our eyes wide open so please,
spare us the skeptical assertion that we’re a bunch of “scream(ing)” NIMBY’s.
Our concerns run far deeper.
First, concerning the health, safety
and long term risks to the people of our town, our suit filed June 18th against
the New York State DEC and Waste Management alleges dozens of legitimate procedural
flaws that, without our challenge, could have led to an ill-advised decision by the
DEC to approve the expansion.
The editors challenge the PSPA to “find a solution to the booming threat of garbage taking over our entire planet.” We couldn’t agree more with the concern. That’s why we contend that there was no serious review of “alternate landfill technologies” that encourage bio-degrading waste rather than entombing it, and we question whether proper analysis was done to determine if the current landfill liner could even withstand further compression, thus ensuring that future generations would not have to deal with leachate release into ground water, the canal or the creeks and wetlands near High Acres.
Our petition also challenges measures to study the effect of greenhouse gases on air quality and we have also concluded that no serious attempt was made to understand impacts of truck traffic and noise through Perinton, and the village of Fairport.
In fact, there are more than three dozen issues raised in our petition.
We find it curious that the editors would call us out to demand alternatives rather than issue the same direct challenge to the people we charge to work directly with Waste Management- our elected officials. Nevertheless, we do call on Waste Management to consider expanding its trash-to-energy strategy in lieu of expanding the landfill. According to Waste Management’s own website, the energy produced by safely incinerating trash is five times greater than the energy produced by burning methane, which Waste Management already does at High Acres. Further, this process produces waste at only 15% of the output of simply dumping the trash.
Secondly, in our view it was necessary to organize as a response to the town’s approach to the process. Generations to come will be affected by decisions being made now, yet most official talk has been of royalties that translate to about an $80 annual tax break per family, wood chips and “free” services such as recycling pickup and composting.
Is it any wonder why our elected officials appeared to us to have taken sides early on in this process with their endorsements of the “benefits” of allowing status quo landfill expansion? We feel that the rules of the game were being changed all too quietly, and the town was an accomplice in it.
Clearly our officials, neglecting the burgeoning population near and around the landfill, thought more of maintaining standards and expectations set in a bygone era, rather than driving hard negotiations for a better deal for the people of Perinton, similar to deals struck by the communities hosting the Mill Seat and Seneca Meadows landfills.
Riga, for example, pays no town taxes at all, and features a property value protection plan, citizens advisory board, school benefits and other features all absent from Perinton’s benefits package. With the quiet renewal of an older Host Community Benefit Agreement, our officials chose to milk the same small drops from the cash cow rather than squeeze hard to get more out of it, particularly for those of us who live in the shadow of High Acres.
That’s why our town leadership has a credibility problem with us. The minimalist, even misleading way public hearings on the matter were communicated to the community as a whole, and particularly those of us directly impacted by the proposals, were entirely unacceptable given what is at stake. Bare minimum steps to notify the people were taken, including obscure references to “Parkway Expansion” in legal notices rather than more direct, targeted efforts.
Upon public outcry, the town to its credit did respond with better outreach efforts at the eleventh hour. Notices of hearings were mailed to many more stakeholders. And the people came.
There we saw and heard first-hand our elected officials, including our Supervisor Jim Smith, endorsing landfill expansion at so-called Waste Management “workshops” (or trade shows?) hosted at town hall.
At the joint meeting of several town boards on the evening of May 22nd, Supervisor Smith did not deny what the members of the PSPA discovered on our own---that Perinton officials had explicity asked Waste Management to pursue a vertical expansion of the landfill. That is why it would be intellectually dishonest for us to accept Mr. Smith’s remarks of June 12th regarding Waste Management’s decision to withdraw the vertical component. We believe it is more likely that the town pulled its request and the letter was more of a face-saving tactic.
It would also be impractical to conclude that a letter to the town equates to a permanent decision. Because Waste Management did not formally withdraw the vertical expansion plan from the agency that matters the most at the moment-the state DEC- we had no choice but to follow suit.
The PSPA acknowledges that Perinton is a landfill community. We understand that if we want garbage picked up, then it must be put down. We live here by choice. Our membership is not limited only to those of us within sight, smell or earshot of the landfill.
Our goal is to fight for a “solid” solid waste management plan that is safe, a landfill that is obscure, and with our urging, activist representation from town officials who will demand more than a few Waste Management scraps for the citizens of Perinton and who fight, as the editors suggest, for more creative solutions to our trash problem.
“Not in my backyard?”
Hardly.
Kevin P Gorman is Vice President of the PSPA. Reach him at info@savescenicperinton.org
