SPOC keeps the grassroots movement going

For close to a decade, members of two Orleans county groups -- County's Citizens' Environmental Coalition (CEC) and Stop Polluting Orleans County (SPOC) - have been fighting to keep another landfill from operating within its boundaries. Oral arguments in their case were heard on January 23 in Albany County Supreme Court. Members from SPOC and the CEC spoke before the court in their case against the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) regarding a controversial Waste Management landfill proposal for Albion.

Members of both environmental groups are challenging DEC Commissioner Erin Crotty's decision to rescind permit conditions that require Waste Management to pay for two DEC expert monitors at a proposed landfill in Albion. SPOC and the CEC are also challenging Crotty's predecessor's decision to block a hearing on Waste Management's environmental record.

"SPOC has evidence that Waste Management's fitness record in communities across this nation is objectionable," Pat Wood, director of SPOC said. "They (Waste Management) are not trustworthy to possess a permit to operate a landfill of any size on the banks of the historic Erie Canal."

Members of the group have also addressed the Albion Board of Education, have spoken at several Town of Albion board meetings, and have presented their findings on the amounts of traffic and the hazards the trucks would pose to school children, as the garbage trucks would be traveling down Route 31, directly in front of the school grounds. Concerns have also been voiced by the group on the quality of life for residents as it relates to the unsavory sights and sounds a landfill would bring to Albion.

SPOC and CEC want the Albany County Supreme Court to order a hearing on the environmental record of Waste Management to determine whether the company can be trusted to comply with landfill permits in Albion. They are also seeking to overturn the February 10, 2003 determination of the commissioner that DEC environmental monitors are unnecessary.

Gary Abraham, attorney for both groups, said, "The two decisions complained of here, restricting the scope of a background check on polluters and removing DEC monitors from landfills, are among the most important provisions for assuring the public polluters will obey the law."

Under the changed monitor provisions, Waste Management would be allowed to select private contractors to monitor the proposed towpath landfill and to negotiate their fee.

"This is a perfect example of the fox guarding the hen house," Mike Schade, Western New York Director of CEC said. "It is also an extreme departure from DEC's own policy, setting a dangerous precedent for operators of other landfills and pollution sites across the state."

The groups feel that in order to ensure proper compliance with regulations, landfills need to be monitored by state agencies, not by third party companies, especially companies hired by the agency they are charged with monitoring. The DEC would shoulder the cost of any on-site inspections that were performed but otherwise would be limited to reviewing the results of Waste Management's paid monitors.

"Our attorney has good feelings about the way the hearing went," Wood said. "We have been going around and around with this since early 1996. After Orleans Landfill closed and Waste Management put in their bid, they could have walked in and taken over if not for the efforts of our group. Every day that we haven't had Waste Management on our roads has been a good day."

SPOC is a community group comprised of more than 200 Albion area residents who have been working together since 1983 to educate the citizens of Orleans County about the dangers of landfills in their community. The group became incorporated in 1990. "We are one of the longest running grass roots organizations in the state," Wood said.

Wood said the judge is likely to render a decision in 30 days.