The environmental groups Stop Polluting Orleans County and Albany-based Citizens Environmental Coalition filed a lawsuit in Albany County Supreme Court June 10 against state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Erin Crotty, challenging Crotty's decision last February to rescind permit conditions that required Waste Management of New York to pay for two DEC expert monitors at a proposed landfill in Albion. SPOC and CEC are also challenging her predecessor's decision to block a hearing on Waste Management's environmental record.

Under the changed monitor provisions, Waste Management may select private contractors to monitor the proposed Towpath landfill and negotiate their fee. The DEC will shoulder the cost of any on-site inspections it performs, and otherwise will be limited to reviewing the results of Waste Management's paid monitors.

Mike Schade, CEC's Western New York director, noted that DEC policy requires the facility to pay not only for the salaries of DEC monitors, but also for their office, equipment and training overhead and fringe benefits. "The Commissioner tried to justify the change as a cost-saving measure, but that makes no sense," Schade said.

An interim decision in 2000 by former Commissioner John Cahill rejected an administrative law judge's ruling that evidence offered by SPOC should be heard on Waste Management of New York's record. Commissioner Crotty's February decision approved permits for the landfill.

"These two decisions, taken together, let the fox guard the henhouse," according to the groups' attorney Gary Abraham. "The permit review record shows Waste Management is integrated into a corporation that leads the pack in a notorious industry," according to Abraham. The lawsuit claims no reasonable justification exists for Crotty's departure from DEC policy requiring on-site DEC monitors at risky facilities, nor for Cahill's departure from DEC policy requiring an examination of the record of companies that own permit applicants.

"Since Commissioner Cahill's decision, evidence of Waste Management's violations has mounted, and they continue to violate the law in New York and elsewhere," according to SPOC director Pat Wood. "We asked them for stricter monitoring, but the Commissioner said the monitoring that was in place should keep them honest. Now the new Commissioner has taken even that away."