New recycling regs to lengthen landfill life

 ALBANY COUNTY — To buy time at the Rapp Road landfill, Albany County municipalities will have to beef up their recycling programs in 2009. 

Albany has outlined an amended plan (the Solid Waste Management Plan — or SWMP — Modification) that includes directives to expand recycling programs in the commercial, industrial, and institutional sector, including schools. Municipalities that will be affected by this include Guilderland, New Scotland, Altamont, Voorheesville, Berne, Knox, Westerlo, and Rensselaerville.

The directives are a condition made by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to consider the Albany-led Solid Waste Planning Unit’s proposal to expand the Rapp Road landfill. The landfill will be filled in 13 months and the proposed expansion is expected to provide enough space for six to seven years worth of waste.

The DEC will hold a public legislative hearing on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at 7 p.m. at the Polish Community Center on Washington Avenue Extension, regarding the landfill expansion permit application.

The last expansion, in 2000, was supposed to provide enough landfill space to last until 2013 without this most recent expansion. Continued high levels of dumping by residents and businesses in Albany and in the Capital Region municipalities that use the Rapp Road landfill have necessitated another expansion.

Once the modification plan is approved by the DEC, the planning unit says that it will use the additional time provided by the expansion to tackle the landfill’s long-term dump dilemmas. A 360-acre site in Coeymans has been designated the Capital Region’s future dump, but mobilized public opposition and lawsuits by the town of Coeymans have forced progress on the landfill to come to a halt.     

According to Albany Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro from the First Ward, Albany is exploring options for the Coeymans site now that it owns the title to the land. One of the options is limiting the Coeymans site to organic waste.

“A big part that’s going in to the Rapp Road landfill is organic waste-food scraps. We need to cut down on that stuff going in the landfill. We need to get down to zero waste,” Calsolaro said.

On Nov. 12, representatives from the dozen municipalities in the planning unit met to turn in signed agreements showing their willingness to cooperate.  Town leaders also provided updates on what they were doing to move the recycling projects forward. Mayor James Gaughan of Altamont has set up a December public hearing to jumpstart the village but admitted, “Trying to get us in compliance has been a bit of a challenge.” 

“We, regardless of the fact that we’re small, are required to sign on or we’ll be blocked out of the expanded landfill,” Gaughan said, describing the necessity of making the recycling modifications a priority.

Voorheesville Mayor Robert Conway was optimistic about the status of the municipalities.

“Most of the member communities are in pretty good shape,” he said. “I don’t think any of them are going to be overly stressed to comply.”

Referring to the hazardous waste and electronics recycling programs that Voorheesville offers with the towns of Bethlehem and Colonie respectively, Conway said, “There’s a cooperative spirit already but this agreement would certainly formalize and coordinate the cooperative effort.”

All the municipalities already have recycling programs in place for individuals. The modification specifies that backyard composting and grass waste mulching “will be promoted wherever appropriate on a Planning-unit wide basis through brochures and website postings.”

The modification also lays out goals to increase the amount of recycling per year. Not counting yard waste, residential waste diversion and recycling for the planning unit municipalities was 15.5 percent in 2007. By 2011, the municipalities will be expected to increase that to 29 percent.   

Recycling ordinances across the planning unit will also be standardized. Albany’s recycling requirements will be the model for municipalities that provide recycling and Bethlehem will be the model for those that use private haulers or self-transport, like Voorheesville and Altamont. 

New post

The other major part of the SWMP modification is the hiring of a recycling coordinator, a position the Albany Common Council hopes to fill by January 2009. Half of the coordinator’s salary, which will be around $100,000 per year, will be paid by the city of Albany. The rest will be paid according to each municipality’s population as a percentage of the planning unit. Voorheesville’s portion will be 1.3 percent, or $1,300 per year, and Altamont’s is eight-tenths of a percent, or $800 per year.  Guilderland without Altamont will be 15.1 percent, or around $15,100 per year and New Scotland without Voorheesville will be 2.8 percent or $2,800 per year.

According to Ken Gallagher, a manager from Clough Harbour and Associates, the engineering consultant that created the modification plan, there are state grants available through the DEC that could fund up to half of the cost that municipalities pay for the recycling coordinator but he said, “The grant process takes several years.”

Grants are also available from the DEC for recycling infrastructure, local recycling coordinators, and assistance for household hazardous waste collection.

Focus on business

Gallagher confirmed that, although “most communities have been doing [recycling] in some manner or form,” the biggest changes will be for businesses. “What’s happened recently,” he said, “is that DEC has taken a fresh look at our communities and has determined that there needs to be more focused effort on the commercial and industrial sectors.”

That focused effort will be one of the primary jobs of the coordinator whose office will serve as a clearinghouse of data to assess progress in the municipalities. The coordinator will also work with recycling contacts in each community to standardize recycling procedures and educate individual recyclers and institutions, as well as the private recycling companies that are contracted by the towns and villages to pick up recycling.

Councilman Calsolaro said that small businesses will feel the biggest effect from the new recycling rules

“There could be backlash,” he said. “I could see that happening because we’ve never enforced it before. We’re going to make sure businesses are following the same source separation and I’m sure it’s going to affect a lot of small businesses. Some won’t do it before they’re forced to or they’re fined.” 

Municipalities will be responsible for enforcing the new recycling laws. 

Although fines will act as sticks for industries that are not complying, there are also carrots provided to the commercial and industrial sector. Through the Empire State Development, grants are available for businesses to expand their recycling programs, reduce the volumes and toxicity of waste, and prevent pollution.

Controversy continues

The Rapp Road expansion proposal continues to court controversy. Lynne Jackson, an advocate for Save the Pine Bush, a watchdog group, says the real issue is that the concept of zero garbage isn’t one that the city is talking about.

“To have the landfill filled up six years earlier than it was supposed to is a huge miscalculation,” said Jackson. “You can’t tell me the engineers didn’t know how long it was supposed to last.” 

The controversy also extends to the revenue Rapp Road brings in for Albany. In 2006, Albany’s comptroller, Thomas Nitido, told The Enterprise that the revenue from the landfill totaled approximately $10.8 million for 2005 and that property taxes in the city would go up 23 to 25 percent without that income.

Councilman Calsolaro was skeptical of Nitido’s approximations. “I don’t believe the revenue numbers are there,” he said. “The city claims to make between eleven and thirteen million in revenue but, if you discount the cost of running the landfill, discount the bonds, equipments, shredders, the landfill cover, the figure came to 6.4 million as a net revenue from the landfill. Included in that is the $1.7 million for cost to ship garbage out so really it’s a revenue of $4.7 million.”  

The modification plan does not cite a revenue figure for the Rapp Road facility.  It does cite a figure for how much it costs the city to run both its solid waste and recyclables collection services, which is $3,069,000.

Councilman Calsolaro also commented on the lack of urgency in Albany to take a serious look at garbage. “Something that’s bothered me is, will we keep going and do another expansion in seven years? We have Coeymans but we haven’t done anything,” he said. “I don’t think there is a sense of urgency because the administration keeps relying on the DEC to approve expansions. The last one was supposed to be the last one.”

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